Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jan 21, 2009 1:02 pm Hello! Please help me?
We are looking at varying blocks of land, but almost all of the blocks we like face either South or North. In your opinion which would be better? And in relation to our floor plan below.. would we be better having the master bedroom side facing east or west? ie. We want to know how we should best position the house.. I have no idea about where the sun comes up and should be and everything, can anyone point me in the direction of which way is best to position a house? And why there are varying things to think about when positioning a house in relation to sun? I might also add.. at this stage it will just be me and my partner living in the house. We are probably looking at using two of the bedrooms in future for kids rooms and the study on the plan will be converted to another bedroom although we will use one of the rooms for a study. Also the area between the garage and study and off the family area will be an alfresco area with decking. Please tell me the best way to position my house and which of the 3 rooms i should eventually use for bedrooms and which room for a study. And how to best utilise the alfresco area. Thanks in advance. I should also add that i do believe PD can flip the floorplan, so with that as an option.. whats the best way? Also.. my typical work hours are 11am - 8pm and my partners 2.30pm to 11pm. But these hours could change in the future.. if that affects anything at all. We'll be putting a smaller window up high in the meals area also. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Which way should my house be positioned? 2Jan 21, 2009 1:08 pm Personally, if I have the choice, I will choose the block of land facing North (i.e your entrance is North with backyard facing South).
That way when you come back from work, the light should shine in your house from West to the kitchen, hence the house will be brighter (assuming you don't flip the floor plan of course) ~ Re: Which way should my house be positioned? 3Jan 21, 2009 1:16 pm Given that the only windows on the left-hand side are bathrooms, I'd face that side west, leaving your living areas facing east. West-facing living rooms are not nice in summer.
Assuming that you have a bit of room left at the rear of the block for a yard, if you choose a south-facing block and leave the plan as is, you get northern light/sun in that part of your yard. At the very least, it'd be handy to place the clothesline there, and it's near the laundry door anyway. You might want to move the study window to the side - depends how much light you want in that room. I'd keep that as the study - if you do have kids at some point, it's a good idea to have their rooms away from the noisy kitchen/main living area. Does your alfresco area have a roof? Re: Which way should my house be positioned? 5Jan 21, 2009 1:30 pm kek Given that the only windows on the left-hand side are bathrooms, I'd face that side west, leaving your living areas facing east. West-facing living rooms are not nice in summer. Assuming that you have a bit of room left at the rear of the block for a yard, if you choose a south-facing block and leave the plan as is, you get northern light/sun in that part of your yard. At the very least, it'd be handy to place the clothesline there, and it's near the laundry door anyway. You might want to move the study window to the side - depends how much light you want in that room. I'd keep that as the study - if you do have kids at some point, it's a good idea to have their rooms away from the noisy kitchen/main living area. Does your alfresco area have a roof? Thanks very much for your input. Our alfresco will have a roof. We wouldn't have too much room at the back of the house, it will be more room at the alfresco side of the house for a yard. We are looking at switching the window in the study so we are able to get light in the room instead of facing the alfresco. We'll also mainly be using the family/meals/kitchen and master bedroom as most lived in rooms.. the rumpus and kids rooms will be used a bit more later down the track when kids are part of the picture. I should probably also mention in my post we are planning on adding a smaller window up high in the meals area. It will be longer in width then length if that makes sense? Re: Which way should my house be positioned? 6Jan 21, 2009 1:47 pm I know the kind of window you mean - we have one that shape in our family room, although it's not high-set (funky design feature ).
Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Extra light will be nice, but make sure you have a blockout blind of some kind if you face that side west. And perhaps some kind of shading on the outside? It does seem to be hard to find an east- or west-facing block to take advantage of a side al fresco area. Took me AGES. I got sick of driving around discounting likely-sounding blocks because they had power lines next door or were on a corner or had a slope that a mountain goat would shudder at. Sometimes I think we got the only possible block for our house in the whole area. Aspect is really important - it's something you're stuck with for as long as you live in the house. So taking time to consider all the factors before deciding is definitely worthwhile. Hopefully you'll get some helpful suggestions here. I know I've seen that floorplan - which house is it? Re: Which way should my house be positioned? 7Jan 21, 2009 2:01 pm kek I know the kind of window you mean - we have one that shape in our family room, although it's not high-set (funky design feature ). http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i18/kerrynw/05112008509_1_1.jpg Extra light will be nice, but make sure you have a blockout blind of some kind if you face that side west. And perhaps some kind of shading on the outside? It does seem to be hard to find an east- or west-facing block to take advantage of a side al fresco area. Took me AGES. I got sick of driving around discounting likely-sounding blocks because they had power lines next door or were on a corner or had a slope that a mountain goat would shudder at. Sometimes I think we got the only possible block for our house in the whole area. Aspect is really important - it's something you're stuck with for as long as you live in the house. So taking time to consider all the factors before deciding is definitely worthwhile. Hopefully you'll get some helpful suggestions here. I know I've seen that floorplan - which house is it? Thats the window! But yep, high set. Very funky, it took a while to grow on me but i like it now. The floorplan is the Regent 23 with PD. It is so hard to get absolutely everything right, to get the house to perfectly with the land.. i guess thats why sane people do not build! Re: Which way should my house be positioned? 8Jan 21, 2009 4:50 pm I don't think it matters greatly whether you have a north or south facing block if you can flip the plan as either way there will be bedroom/s facing north and south which is fine.
What you want to avoid is the family room sliding doors and the alfresco from facing west as you will get the afternoon glare and sliding doors are hard to block with blinds etc without blocking access thru them and the alfresco, roof or not, will be glary and hot in the afternoons - unless you are deep in shady forest in cool Tasmania- this will be an issue with most areas of Australia. Yeah mine about 9 metres long and 8 wide with slope of 25% at one point but the end point of the outlet is past the side of garage and if he concretes allowing for… 4 4517 4 9048 I have a really long hallway which is 1100mm W x 11500mm L I would appreciate if anyone can give suggestions to light it up with Linear LED lights that goes from wall to… 0 8810 |