I’ve got one of those in my living room, and I really like it…the only thing I wish it had (and what I’ll probably get if and when I add one over the staircase) is a built-in light so I can just flip that on at night rather than having another separate overhead light.
Seal-wise it had no issues for I think 10 years, and then the roof got redone and some chips and stuff got inside so I had to figure out how to open it up and clean it out, but the tube itself hasn’t been any kind of problem.
I think we had something like this when I was a teen (would’ve been installed in the late 90s) and the inside the house but had translucent cover so the light was more diffuse. There was no way out could become a pinpoint like a magnifying glass. I don’t think we had any problems with the seals in the six years we lived there.
Quite a few people I follow on social media absolutely love their Velux skylights. They rave about them.
I’ve heard good things about solatubes too. For our climate we’re trying to decide if the extra airflow from a skylight in the spring & fall (which are very moderate temps) would be worth the bigger hassle.
@meerkat @pdm @kenner Thank you, good to know!
@rosie I’ve seen the same! Most of those are sponsored though and I would love to read a 5- or 10-year review.
I asked a friend what their countertop material was. It was a pretty matte black material, so I was expecting soapstone or slate. Well, turns out it’s Richlite (https://www.richlite.com/whatisrichlite), made of recycled paper and resin. It claims to be waterproof and my friend says it’s held up around their sink area for 10 years now. So cool. And it costs about 65% what natural stone does.
Richlite is a really popular ebony alternative for guitar and banjo fingerboards these days. Those get quite a lot of abuse, so I’m sure it’s a really hardwearing product!
This is pretty major: engineered stone is linked to severe lung damage and death in workers due to inhaling of fine particulates, and will be banned with Australia from mid-2024 onwards. From a quick read, it is a policy change from the unions rather than a legal ban, but should have a big impact regardless and was probably much faster to enact.
One of my sales reps was telling me about the problems with it a couple of weeks ago. He said some workers have died from fabricating it dry rather than using wet saws. Apparently the particulates are minuscule.
I heard about the issues a couple of years ago. Nasty stuff when managed incorrectly. They told everyone to not bother trying to rush to get it done because they won’t manage it in time before the ban. There’s already a severe shortage of tradies.
Updates on Richlite:
I thought I was being both frugal and eco-friendly by choosing Richlite, a waterproof material made out of recycled paper. But marble is very, very common around here (longstanding Italian immigrant hub) and it’s easy to get remnants. The recycled paper stuff is manufactured across the country and shipping was $1,200 whether you had one 4x8 panel or ten. After factoring in shipping, marble would have been cheaper! We recouped a little of that by getting a second slab for the 3rd floor countertop, for the same flat shipping charge.
It was $25/square foot before shipping, and about $48/square foot after.
I’m sure there are frameworks out there for calculating environmental impact of manufacturing vs. transport. I’m just glad (after learning about the lung issues) we avoided manufactured stone altogether.
Most of the Richlite has been installed and I think it feels great – substantial and waterproof, but not cold like stone. Our contractor said it was nice material to work with, cutting very similarly to a hardwood like cherry.
I know very little about the material but it looks pretty!
Ooh that is swish.
the manufactured stone issue is one that the shadowy one feels strongly about too.
how did you find about the Richlite?
Years ago I had admired it in a friend’s house because it was pretty and felt good underhand.
They’ve had it for 10 years including around their sink, which is reassuring. There are 2 US manufacturers of this paper composite that I could find, Richlite and Paperstone. They’re very similar. Lots of colors to choose from, but only medium and dark tones because it’s tinted on top of wood.
FYI, we chose 1/2" thickness partly for style, partly for cost, but our contractor said our choice of sink in the kitchenette (granite composite) was heavy enough that it required 1/2" screws, so he will basically make it double thick at the sink cutout. A 3/4" slab or a stainless steel sink would have avoided this issue.
Richlite sounds kind of like what is commonly called ‘compact laminate’ in Australia?
Its pretty cool. Most commonly used here in for things like public bathrooms, laboratories, hospitals, schools, cafe tables, and things like that. I used to work for company that wholesaled both engineered stone and compact laminate (the company that owns Formica) and as long as the engineered stone was available to the domestic market, people wanted that and wouldn’t look at the compact laminate. We did sell a UV stable version for outdoor kitchens that was reasonably popular.
I think it lasts pretty much forever though. We had tests with the UV stable one where it was buried in the ground for years with no degradation. editing my plastic comments. The resins are melamine and phenolic resin is probably a modern bakelite so plastic-ish? Most of the composition is paper but it’s impregnanted with the resins so won’t breakdown like paper does at the end of its life. Far better than a single use plastic and most of the alternatives involve synthetic materials too. I have similar feelings about plastic paints that we don’t think of plastic anymore and maybe should but they are probably still better than alternatives.
Oh, how cool that you know all about it! It’s funny, Formica was tragically unhip while I was growing up and here my wedgie jeans and I are coming full circle right back to it.
The resin/plastic component reminds me of these coffee cups a cafe was using near me, made by Huskee. 50% was recycled coffee grounds but the remaining half was resin aka plastic. Drinking from hot plastic gave me the squicks but having it in an inert countertop seems okay I guess?
Sustainability seems like a Pandora’s box of infinite dimensions where you can only optimize for a few things at a time. I’m kind of afraid to really dig in.
Yeah the end of life stuff for this is still highly questionable AFAIK. But this is probably what I’ll be looking at now engineered stone isnt an option. Yes, I do perfectly fit the profile of your old company’s customer base…
Same as bamboo flooring, I think.
A natural stone like soapstone or marble might be up your alley, too. Or butcher block, which we had on the stove side of our old kitchen and are using again (for the stove side) because it’s so nice to be able to have the world’s biggest cutting board. All of those are probably better on the EOL front.
Formica et al. insist on using decorative papers printed to mimic wood and stone. They sell well which I suppose is why they keep at it but they feel kind of daggy and fake. The really interesting applications for me is when laminate leans into being laminate and looks like laminate. Formica had a 100 year collection a while back which was pretty interesting with geometric patterns.
It’s overwhelming. Ultimately not building or renovating is best but that’s not overly conducive to a career in design or having more space in my little house.
There are ceramic options too that look nice. Kind of like tile but without the grout. I haven’t looked into the sustainability at all.
Most likely. My current kitchen bench is laminate on chipboard, 30 years old and daggy but so bloody durable for my extremely uncareful self, so I can imagine we’d do better with the same but new.
(When we can finally afford to do anything to the house. 
)
