Reflecting light in a house

I was at a thrift store and picked up what turns out to be a mirror made so you can watch your baby in the back eat as you drive. I got it, though, because it's a convex curved mirror and I wanted to play with it for light reflection. (CONCAVE curves in, like a cave, CONVEX curves outward like an arch)



Oh this is NEAT!! I put it flat on a sunny table and looked to see what it reflected on the ceiling. It was not super sharp and bright, but it was huge. I put a couple of random mirrors (including a convex one) and a dvd on the table too. They all made very bright spots, but only a spot. Approximate numbers here, but an 8x10 inch mirror made a 10 x12 inch spot, the 8 x 10 inch convex one made a 3 foot by 6 foot bright area.  
(I wonder if some of the less sharp reflection might be because it's not glass, it's shatterproof plastic?)

So now I'm wondering what kind of light reflection I'd get from the round mirrors used to show what's around corners. Seems like I'd see those second hand someplace but I never have. Hm, I guess I do have at least one big blind spot mirror, today I have no sun for testing, I'll dig it up.

What I'm looking at here is bouncing light around in a house. I do not like skylights, because I believe any roof penetration is where you'll have roof leak problems first, I'm a fan of high windows that are used to let light in on a wall, then the light is bounced around and moved as needed. I have long thought that any high window ledge not doing anything else needs to be mirrored upward. Now I'm thinking convex mirrors upward might spread it all much better.

My house design has interior light tubes that work like a periscope: a hollow wooden column (that's placed so it works aesthetically in the house) with mirrored interior that goes from right in front of a clerestory window down through the floor into the basement, where the light is dispersed. Due to weight and not wanting broken glass, I have acquired a LOT of dead DVD discs that I plan to use to mirror the tubes all the way down. I have tested it, the light comes out as bright as mirrored, but it diffuses the light really nicely, makes a very nice light source.

But adding convex mirrors as a possibility makes me think. If I have a DVD tube that hits a convex mirror at the bottom to disperse it in the room, what would I get? Hmmm...
And putting convex mirrors flat on the window ledges too.....

Anyone ever done this? I'd love more data points!

I use mirrors to move light around my house, into darker areas. Its simple and effective.
Roof penetrations can be water proof, you just need to do it properly

When using any light source if you put a regular flat mirror behind it, the light will be cast away from the mirror, and the light that would have merely been absorbed by the background is now adding to the ambience of the room
We've used this technique with kerosene lamps and candles.

I seem to remember that in an old episode of Mythbusters, they tested something (from a movie maybe?) about using multiple mirrors to direct light into a dark building. They ran into the problem that the light came in, but only lit up a quite small patch of wall, until they hung a white shirt in the beam. Then, suddenly, there was light.

Eino Kenttä wrote:I seem to remember that in an old episode of Mythbusters, they tested something (from a movie maybe?) about using multiple mirrors to direct light into a dark building. They ran into the problem that the light came in, but only lit up a quite small patch of wall, until they hung a white shirt in the beam. Then, suddenly, there was light.

It scattered the light. Depending on what kind of fabric the shirt was, it could scatter quite a lot. Loose weaves don't reflect much light, tight weaves reflect a lot. If it was something like a medium to high priced men's dress shirt the tight weave on it reflected a lot. (I use that system in my heat blocking clothes, tight weaves bounce more sun off them. Men's dress shirts are cheap a thrift stores, I put holes in them for air flow, as they don't breathe well, and then they work really well to keep me cool.)

That's about what I was thinking with both the convex mirror and the DVD disks. I have used mirrors before, but the light at the end of the periscope was a square patch of brightness. The DVDs scatter light every time they reflect off each other all the way down the tube, and what comes out spreads beautifully. (As well as there's no broken glass risk, they are lighter weight, and they can be found for free.)

The convex mirror really spread it more than I expected. I hadn't experimented with them before, but I was expecting just a marginally bigger rectangle. The spread was startling.  

One of the things I have in this rental is big storm windows with crinkled tinfoil under them, that reflect the light of my houseplant grow light into the whole room. It made a world of difference in that room to have that light scattering all over it. For weird reasons I have flat tinfoil in another room, and it doesn't reflect a lot of light at all.

This all just fascinates me, it's not what a quick thought would suggest. Opens up a lot more options to think on how and why it all works, rather than just buy a product at a big box store.

Another thing I love with mirrors is they can be used to make space look more open. I saw a picture of a house that had fake arched doorways with mirrors in the space, really looked neat. I have wanted for years to play with that whole concept. I have a collection of the cheap door mirrors from the dollar stores, I'd love to make something that looks like the railing of a balcony high up on a wall with the mirrors between, and plants crawling over it all to give the room more upper depth visually.

Fiber optic cables are used to route sunlight underground..        Might consider these as well to help move the light around.      It is tricky as the sun moves and so does the angle of the light.