I don't know if there's any way to rectify it -- but our Sun Tunnels (Velux brand) also cast a very blue-whiteish light. Since our paint color scheme is warm-toned, I'm not sure how well this is going to work...

Sun pipe uses only galvanized/polished reflective ducting as well as galvalume roof jack. You have a choice of different difusers.

Here is a link that might be useful: tube lights

We have the Solatube brand. I don't see any blue to the light that comes in.

Just checked. Our blue devil is ODL Solar Flair. Yuck. Called Solartube dealer today. Each 14'' will cost $460. They don't sell parts. Gotta buy the whole set and reinstall.

Depending on your diameter, sun pipe will sell you the galvanized reflctive ducting seperately. It does not emit blue or any other color of the spectrum, just natural light.They also have a wide variety of diffusers.We are impressed with ours ,quality product.

Just a silly question, did the installer remove the blue protective film from the inside of the tunnel? I just installed one last week and it did cast blue until film was removed.

Do you have any theater friends? They could get you a pink gel for next to nothing.

Ditto on jr. There is a blue plastic film!

Not the problem here... We did remove the blue film.
And the light is more white than blue - just not as warm as I'm used to.

This board is so resourceful. I asked the builder whether he removed the blue film or not today and he swore he did. But he promised to double check.

Actually, the light is more natural on a very sunny day, but becomes blue on a cloudy day or in late afternoon during low light. The whole diffuser looks blue. So if the blue film is not the issue, then I hope to get new ducts. Thanks a lot.

Oruboris, are you suggesting applying some pink gel in the tube right above the diffuser to neutralize the color of the incoming light? Is pink the best color to neutraliz blue? I suppose I can give that a shot before I toss the reflective tubes out.

fwiw
Natural daylight is quite blue compared to the yellowish light that is output by most home use light bulbs.

We seem to grow accustomed to it through our windows but put a daylight fluorescent light bulb in the middle of a room and people complain about the whitish_blue light.

I put a 20watt daylight fluorescent on-top of a partition wall... because at the time of purchase they didnt have any warm white lamps. Â A few days later swapped it with an existing 20 watt warm white tube hidden over the kitchen sink.
Don't notice that bluish light next to that kitchen window but it sure sticks out reflecting off the ceiling in a darkened room.

You could use any color you liked, but pink is usually the favored color for natural, healthy looking skin tones. If you find a source [online theatrical supply?], you might want to get a couple different colors to try.

In the world of film photography, portraits are usually shot on pink toned kodak film as opposed to the cooler Fuji film.

For outdoor shots, the light at dawn tends to be quite pink, noon is blue, and dusk is golden.

Our brains actually have built in color correction so we don't notice this. It's why a film photograph indoors without flash looks so wierd-- yellow under incandescent light, greenish under flourescent. The light hasn't changed, our preception of it has.

But when we have two different light sources in one space, the brain tends to 'normalize' the dominant one, and declare the other 'wrong'.

I'm thrilled that it worked! Since originally posting to this thread, I had a cheap brand installed in my main bath. Because it receives no direct sun, it is a very cool, 'sky' blue...

So I'll probably end up taking my own advice!

adding this to an old thread: We had 2 Tubular skylights installed yesterday (9/19/13). I was shocked and extremely disappointed seeing the blue fluorescent light cast, nothing like the natural sunlight I was expecting. I knew I could not live with this and needed to find a way to get rid of the blueness and soften the starkness of the light coming through. I found the product Rosco Lighting Gel (but it is not a gel or liquid) very good advice. I bought it through a Theatrical Lighting center near by and found out it is very commonly used for stage lighting effects and photography. It comes in hundreds of different colors and basically a very thin sheet of plastic. I used the glass circle as a pattern, traced around it, and then cut the circle out with a pair of scissors. Start to finish...just taking a couple of minutes and the price per sheet of Lighting Gel was $6. Inexpensive, easy fix !
I first tried a very pale shade of yellow, better... but was still disappointed as it now cast a slight green hue. I went back to the store and bought a very faint Caucasian âÂÂfleshâ color, that worked perfect. The actual color is R3410. It completely softened the harshness so now no hint of blue/fluorescent casting whatsoever.
Rosco Lighting Gel is easily available, I have 2 stores within 3 miles of my Southern California home or IâÂÂm sure it can be purchased on line as well if you google it.

Thanks for the tip!

Has anyone ever tried to paint the tube white to reduce the florescent like quality of the light?

13 years later and THIS IS SOOO RELEVANT! Thank you!!! I asked Are there any gels or an insert I could add to ‘warm the light’ outloud and found your post as confirm I am in in the right direction! I will be searching for some for the 5 we just had installed. I hope this helps other folks with this same problem! It’s just too blue.

DH got sky tubes today and I hate it. i have a theatre background including lighting design and have spent a lot of time getting all the light in our house just so and now we have freaky blue light in both bathrooms I was like ”I wonder if some one sells premade filters or if Im going to have to order rosco gels old school” and started contemplating buying a gel swatch book but here the internet not only validates my color sensitivity but my solution - and provides some color codes to try!

side note: I already used rosco gels on an outdoor light fixture that I felt needed a diffuser - its been years and still looks great.

I just had sun tunnels installed and am finding them a bit cool as well. So these Rosco gels… Do i place it right above the diffuser? I take it I don’t have to worry about it melting or anything since they’re made for hot studio lights, right? I’m wondering if the Rosco Sun Cinegel 1/8 CTO would work.…

Yes, temp should not be an issue within reason. I have seen theater lights scorch rosco gels but those were very hot lights and very dark gels. Not like this application.

I ordered the 1/8 CTO 12x24 which should cover both sky tubes, I also ordered a Rosco Color Correction Filter Kit which has 12x12s of their more popular gels so if the 1/8 CTO is a bust I can experiment. I have some other lights I used for zoom calls and stuff so I have other justification for the kit.

I think I can just cut the gel to the size of the diffuser and lay it in. I’ll try to take and post pictures here. Fedex believes they will be here in time the weekend. My skytubes have lights in them for night time so I figure I’ll need to use a cooler ”daylight” temp bulb so the filtered light won’t be too amber with the light on.

HU- I’d be very interested in seeing pics! Hope it works out!

Oh, man. This is all making me so sad. The whole reason we got two new sun tubes in the living room was to pull in full spectrum light, but now I find that in order to counter the blue cast from these things, I might have to add more cast.

What I will say is that if your have the 14" sun tunnels from Velux, they sell a "neutral light" filter that is spec'd at around 3600K, so, not sure how that compares to using a theater gel, but it might work for some people, and you don't have to cut it yourself.

For my purposes, I am going to have to do some other experimenting, because I need more of the spectrum, not less of it (for me to do artwork, but also my plants). If anyone has been able to track down the source of the bluing (is it the diffuser, or the inside of the tube, or possibly the dome on top?), that would be a huge help. Of course, I will check for the blue film!

Thank you all!

Addendum: I just took the diffuser out and looked at the light coming in, and it is definitely not the diffuser causing the bluing, nor is there a film in there. It's the top dome I think. I conveniently have an older sun tube in my bathroom that does not do the bluing thing, and it also does not have a tinted dome on top, so that seems like the main difference between them. Now I am wondering if the dome can be replaced maybe with something not tinted...

FWIW: Solatube sells thin, round plastic pieces that are tinted a soft yellow to offset the brightness of the solatube. They install in the round lense in the ceiling to diffuse the light coming in from the tubes.

The roofing contractor that installed the sun tunnels ordered the tinted sheets from Velux for me. They gave off a rather golden tint…not my thing at all. Even the roof guy said it was ugly, lol. I’ll just stick with the blue tint, I guess. Or maybe I’ll try the Rosco ones afterall, since I can choose the color.

Has anyone installed sun tunnels only to later remove them? I am so disappointed in the cheap plastic ring, and the blue tones i feel like they look terrible in my space. Debating removing-would i need to patch roof or jus leave and remove from ceiling?

I used the Rosco film that was recommended and my formerly bluish-hued Velux sun tunnel looks so much better. So nice to find real answers on the internet!!

Hello - if anyone could specify which Rosco lighting gel color they used, I would appreciate it so much. siena_s_dad said his photography friend picked out "yellow" but in a quick search, there are lots of yellow options. Thank you for any help and any before and after pics would be so helpful.

Circling back after a few years to respond to the question of which Rosco gel. I initially purchased the Rosco color correction kit to try a bunch of colors. The one I settled on was "4310 Roscosun 1/8 CTO" and then I have to use 5000k "daylight" bulbs IN the tube for when the light is own at night becuse if you put a warm or white lightbulb in the tube when the light is on at night it's too orange IMHO.