Hi everyone. First timers here working towards starting our new house. We secured a block of land back in December, which is due to be registered in July/August.
The front of the house will effectively face north (I've read conflicting info about whether this means we're north facing or south facing). We are restricted to a single storey build.
After looking at a few different floor plans, we think we want something similar to this
(Iluka 21 by NuTrend) as we ideally want to squeeze in 4 bedrooms.
I believe having the living/dining area on the eastern side is preferred in order to avoid the afternoon sun coming through the windows, is this correct?
Are there any other obvious issues with this sort of floor plan I am missing with sun direction etc? Should I think about adding additional and/or bigger windows on the eastern wall of the dining/living area to allow more natural light in?
Any and all advice is appreciated.
Based on your QLD location, this is how the sunlight travels in January as example.
Yes, your block would be called north facing block on a slight eastern angle, with back yard facing south.
One potential issue is that the three minor bedrooms can get quite hot in the evening making uncomfortable to sleep unless you blast your AC before bed.
You could search for a floor plan somewhat like this, all bedrooms on the eastern side, living on the west side. In this way, you would be able to reduce the amount of windows on western side (window for laundry and main bathroom. no kitchen window splashback). Some south facing windows for living, I think, are not bad. Some sunset light during dining, and overlooks backyard and alfresco.
Based on your QLD location, this is how the sunlight travels in January as example.
Yes, your block would be called north facing block on a slight eastern angle, with back yard facing south.
One potential issue is that the three minor bedrooms can get quite hot in the evening making uncomfortable to sleep unless you blast your AC before bed.
You could search for a floor plan somewhat like this, all bedrooms on the eastern side, living on the west side. In this way, you would be able to reduce the amount of windows on western side (window for laundry and main bathroom. no kitchen window splashback). Some south facing windows for living, I think, are not bad. Some sunset light during dining, and overlooks backyard and alfresco.
using Jason's great advice a plan like this could be suitable but there are usually local limitations to the size of the house relative to the block size and what is included (ie does total size allowed include porch and alfresco?) my suggestion, although much smaller than your original plan, is 221 sqm (including 20sqm for the alfresco and porch and 60% of your block would be about 210sqm) but i've reduced internal size as much as possible and increased outdoor living and careful choice of windows and opening skylights should improve cross ventilation and avoid overheating and sacrificing external laundry door in favour of carrying washing through the family room, avoids the long hike along the narrow side path to the backyard, allows for more space for storage and direct entry from garage to kitchen and, subject to budget, i would consider raked ceilings that can greatly improve feeling of spaciousness
You could search for a floor plan somewhat like this, all bedrooms on the eastern side, living on the west side. In this way, you would be able to reduce the amount of windows on western side (window for laundry and main bathroom. no kitchen window splashback). Some south facing windows for living, I think, are not bad. Some sunset light during dining, and overlooks backyard and alfresco.
Thanks for the feedback. Little bit confused about the advice RE: living on the western side with no/limited windows. All information we've received so far has been the opposite - living on the east to avoid afternoon sun/glare + try to include lots of windows to bring in natural light.
using Jason's great advice a plan like this could be suitable but there are usually local limitations to the size of the house relative to the block size and what is included (ie does total size allowed include porch and alfresco?) my suggestion, although much smaller than your original plan, is 221 sqm (including 20sqm for the alfresco and porch and 60% of your block would be about 210sqm) but i've reduced internal size as much as possible and increased outdoor living and careful choice of windows and opening skylights should improve cross ventilation and avoid overheating and sacrificing external laundry door in favour of carrying washing through the family room, avoids the long hike along the narrow side path to the backyard, allows for more space for storage and direct entry from garage to kitchen and, subject to budget, i would consider raked ceilings that can greatly improve feeling of spaciousness
Maximum build footprint for our block is 208m2 so 221 would be too big. The floorplan I shared above was 197m2.
Also would prefer to avoid having the alfresco area on the western side, to avoid having to install shade blinds due to afternoon sun and glare pointing directly into the area.
Since posting this, we found a display home + design we really like. The display home was the same north facing alignment as our home will be. Any thoughts on the following type of design?
(The display home was a 3 bedroom plan, the floorplan we like is a 4 bedroom variation of the display home)
We're big fans of the corner stacker sliding doors as it opens up the living/dining area to the alfresco area (we'd consider bifold stacker doors if budget allows). Our budget also seems to allow for the raked ceiling as shown in the display home photo.
Rear master bedroom was always a preference for us, but not too many designs we have seen have had it. Bedroom 4 would likely be used an a home office/gaming room, while bedrooms 2 and 3 would be future children's bedrooms. We'd also likely look to extend the garage out to the boundary to give us some additional storage space with shelving.
You could search for a floor plan somewhat like this, all bedrooms on the eastern side, living on the west side. In this way, you would be able to reduce the amount of windows on western side (window for laundry and main bathroom. no kitchen window splashback). Some south facing windows for living, I think, are not bad. Some sunset light during dining, and overlooks backyard and alfresco.
Thanks for the feedback. Little bit confused about the advice RE: living on the western side with no/limited windows. All information we've received so far has been the opposite - living on the east to avoid afternoon sun/glare + try to include lots of windows to bring in natural light.
Yes you are right. Regardless whether you put living or sleeping on western side, west is always going to be heated. So it's really your personal choice. Do you want some light into your living in the afternoon/evening, or do you want heated masterbed before you go to sleep?
I'm in Victoria so the issues we face here are quite different as it's basically 9 months cold and only 3 months hot. But the basic principles should still be the same: Get as much direct sunlight during winter to heat up the house and avoid any direct sunlight during summer to keep it cool. Any heat from direct sunlight that radiates thru your window is going to get trapped inside your house. What I found really challenging on the West side is that you need ridiculously large eaves to keep the sun out in summer. The sun will probably stay low for a shorter duration in Queensland compared to Victoria, but if your West side is near the boundary, it will probably still be an issue.
The only practical method if you don't have enough space for things like trees, is to use shutters or blinds on the outside of the house.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but for a hotter climate like Queensland, I would assume you would want a lot of south facing windows to get in as much light as possible without the direct sun light while reducing any west facing windows to a minimum.