# House facing north west



## fbmpw (4 Jul 2007)

I am planning on building a house where the front will be slightly north west facing. Anyone built similar whats the sun like to the rear in teh afternoon. Im building a two storey standard height with 30 deg pitched roof. If not enough sun I might consider tilting the house left or right. Any opinions?


----------



## sydthebeat (4 Jul 2007)

house facing north west is a very good orientation....

you should have teh main living spaces designed in the rear left corner (south west)... this would give morning, midday and evening direct sunlight... perhaps think about a single storey extension in this area to the rear....


----------



## lorna (4 Jul 2007)

yes, when the sun comes out maybe in August !! - you will get all day sun on back of your house and i would put a sun room on the sw corner which will get lots of the evening sun. this is exactly the way our house is going to be and have checked this back at the end of may when we had a full weeks sunshine.  also, plenty of sun for using solar panels on the back of your roof if you were thinking of maybe using them.  some evenings the sun was only going down about 8.30 in the evening.


----------



## Niallymac (4 Jul 2007)

Got to dissagree with some posts here. If the front is North West facing, then the rear is South east facing, which is great for sun up until mid afternoon, but once the sun goes beyond due southwest (after about 3-4pm), the back of house will start to loose sun and then the garden will start to become increasingly shaded by the house as the sun moves around into the west for late afternoon/evening. Depends when you want the sun in your back garden I suppose, I prefer mine in the afternoon/evening


----------



## sydthebeat (4 Jul 2007)

the back left room would have both south east *and *south west orientation (picture it  )...... perfect for morning, midday and evening sun...... id suggest patio off the south west wall of this room....


----------



## fbmpw (4 Jul 2007)

thanks for all the opinions. The back left hand side of my house is actually single storey so should be able to recieve sun for most of the day to this part of the garden.


----------



## studio.jk (5 Jul 2007)

I'm new to this whole self-build lark and it's easy to a bit bogged down in jargon and technical terms. For example, all the above posts mention something called the 'sun' - can someone explain to me what this is?

JK


----------



## Simeon (5 Jul 2007)

studio.jk said:


> I'm new to this whole self-build lark and it's easy to a bit bogged down in jargon and technical terms. For example, all the above posts mention something called the 'sun' - can someone explain to me what this is?
> 
> JK


Hi Sunshine! It's the largest entity in the solar system. About 1.5 million KMs in diameter and a temp of over 5k degrees on the Kelvin scale. So big that it contains all but 0.2% of the solar system's mass. Speaking of self-build larks, if you were one (all known larks self-build) you would have a greater chance of seeing the above mentioned as you soared over Knocknagoshel at dawn. Enjoy your croissant!


----------



## breathnach1 (5 Jul 2007)

Fbmpw, 

I agree with Syd the location is ideal. I would have a living room to the rear and to the front withnice big windows therefore gaining light all through the day. A good idea to get light to the back of the house would be to have a long narrow window full two storey height at the front of the house through the hallway. This obviously depends on the layout of your house. I have done this in my house and it works very well.

Also a patio area from rear left hand corner to front left hand corner captures the sun all day.


----------



## sydthebeat (5 Jul 2007)

i saw a program once where the house was on ball bearings and the client would turn it to catch the best of teh sun all day.....


----------



## TDON (5 Jul 2007)

sydthebeat said:


> i saw a program once where the house was on ball bearings and the client would turn it to catch the best of teh sun all day.....


 
Where was that?? How many brown envelopes?? !!!


----------



## johnjoeville (4 Aug 2007)

Maybe you need room for a swimming pool aswell, Sun,sun,sun

Have noth west facing gaff its perfect loving this great Irish weather at the mo bbbq tonite!!!


----------

