Woman discovers kitchen light in new home is actually a skylight

Mojo (@mojojojokes) had a lighting conundrum: After moving into a new place, he had a really hard time figuring out how to turn off the lights in his kitchen.

But thankfully, Mother Nature had a solution to the problem, and she detailed how she did it on TikTok, garnering more than 476,000 views on the app.

“We just moved into this house,” Mojo says to the camera as he films the video. “All day yesterday I couldn't figure out how to turn this light off. I was like, 'I don't know how to turn this light off.'”

They decided not to worry about how to turn off the lights because they had other, more pressing issues that needed to be addressed before they could discover the problem with the lights.

“We were like, whatever, we've got more work to do. So we went out to run some errands, and when we came back the lights were out.”

Naturally, they were a little surprised that the lights had gone off on their own. “We were like, 'What the heck?' But then we were like, 'Is there a timer?' But that doesn't make sense. Why would a timer go off at night?”

They discovered that the lights did indeed turn off at night on a timer, and that the timer was tied to the daily rising and setting of the sun.

“If that's the sun, that's an awesome skylight,” she tells the camera, pointing out that it wasn't a light, but a small natural opening designed to allow sunlight into the home.

“Can you see that? 100% natural and organic. It's solar powered,” she said, before cutting to show her standing in her backyard and pointing the camera at the roof of her home. “There's a little dome,” she said, zooming in on the metal fixture.

“You didn't trust me. You didn't believe me,” she says in her final breath, and then begins to sit outside, as the video ends.

Some users who saw her post were quick to use it as an opportunity to make jokes, such as one person commenting: “Oh, nice pants, Rich McGee here.”

Another person admitted that when Mojo first told them it was a skylight, they didn't believe it either: “Dude, I never believed it. That's crazy.”

Another user of the app said that they too thought the skylight was an actual light in their home, but had no idea how to turn it off: “This exact same thing happened to us!!! Except it took us months to figure out what was causing it.”

And if you're wondering why this type of skylight seems smaller than what you'd expect to find in someone's home, it might be because it's technically called something else. According to one commenter, “My dad used to sell them. They're called solar tubes.”

A company called Solatube advertises these products, and they come in a variety of styles (square or round), and some models even come with a “dimmer” system that allows you to adjust the amount of sunlight that enters your home during the day.

“Bring beautiful natural light into your home with SolaTube's innovative tube-type daylighting technology and transform dark spaces into places you'll love,” the company says on its website.

Energy Sage They've also written about these home lighting solutions, which are often also called “sun tunnels,” saying they are “an alternative to skylights for directing sunlight into the interior of a building. With this technology, sunlight enters a metal tube through a transparent covering that protrudes from the roof. The natural light is then guided along the length of the tube and into the building by a highly reflective polished metal sheet material that acts as a continuous mirror.”

According to the website, some of the sun tunnel variations Mojo showed in his video can also use solar technology to “trap” light, allowing you to keep your home lit even when the sun is not out.

“Most solar tubes do not generate solar power, but some newer products incorporate solar power technology to provide artificial lighting when the sun is not out. Solar tubes are generally not intended to replace electric lighting, but rather are a great alternative to a natural skylight. While they do not provide the same view of the sky as a skylight, they are typically a low cost product, easy to install and a reliable alternative to a skylight.” Energy Sage I have written.

Have you ever seen solar tubs/sun tunnels installed on residential properties? Would you like to have something like this in your home or would you rather just have windows and recessed lighting?