As the clocks have (sadly) gone back and we've come to the end of ‘British Summer Time’, we all have an hour less daylight in our homes in the evening. Of course, we have an hour more in the mornings, but sadly dawn will get later, and dusk will get earlier all the way until the ‘shortest day’ on December 21st.

With those dark winter months ahead, now’s the perfect time to start thinking about making the most of the daylight that is available and how to bring as much of it as possible into your home.

The positive, life affirming benefits of daylight are well documented – and include everything from enhancing your mood and improving health and wellbeing, to increasing productivity and even saving on the cost of artificial lighting.

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Happier

Vast amounts of research have been done into how serotonin levels in the brain, which contribute to happiness and wellbeing, increase when we are exposed to blue skies and sunlight. Sunlight has been proven to boost Vitamin D and lower melatonin levels – both of which are associated with improved sleep patterns and a lower the risk of heart disease; and its importance means you can now even get some fitness trackers to monitor the amount of daylight you get every day.

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Smarter

Daylight has even been proven to improve concentration and productivity. A landmark study done in the US in the early 2000s showed that students in classrooms with the most daylight progressed 20% quicker in maths and 26% quicker in reading than students in classrooms with the least.  

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Every little helps

And of course, the more natural light that can come into your home, the less you need to spend on artificial light. In these days of rising energy costs – every little helps!

What’s most reassuring about all the studies on the benefits of daylight is that natural light indoors is almost as beneficial to us as natural light outdoors. Bringing more natural light into our homes brings a sense of physical and mental comfort that goes way beyond just being able to illuminate those gloomy corners.

There’s also no discernible difference in terms of wellbeing if daylight comes via rooflights or via windows. It’s light in rather than views out that matter most. And rooflights are actually more effective than windows in providing the daylight. According to the global glass specialist Saint Gobain  for a given surface area, rooflights provide two to three times more natural light into a living space than windows.

Our range of flat glass em.glaze flat glass rooflights, skytubes, linked roof glazing and Skyvu roof lanterns give you all the choice you need in terms of bringing light into your home. How about brightening up the playroom with an openable rooflight, flooding the new kitchen extension with light via a lantern, bringing light onto a gloomy landing with a skytube, or using linked glazing to transform the whole of the side extension?

Whitesales’ em.glaze rooflights come in 18 sizes from 600mm to 3200mm and in both walk-on and non-walk-on options. Skyvu lanterns are held in stock in sizes from 1500m x 1000m to 3000m x 2000m and em.glaze linked glazing panels start at 800mm x 2000mm and go up to 3000mm x 6000mm so they will suit any project. They all meet the government’s very latest Building Reg thermal performance targets as well, so you can rest assured you won’t be letting heat out while you’re letting light in.

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I didn’t know that!

* Here's an interesting fact  – the original campaigner for the introduction of British Summer Time, more than a century ago was a builder called William Willett. Way ahead of his time in recognising the benefits of daylight, he wrote a pamphlet in 1907 called The Waste of Daylight, and was the great-great-grandfather of none other than Chris Martin from Coldplay.

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