Opinion on house orientation please.

Tony & Emma · Dec 06, 2007 12:55 pm

Hi all...

We bought a block in the Chase, Berwick, a few weeks back and we are deciding what to build on it at the moment.

Looking at the slightly odd shape, and the double storey house we like so far, it would seem best suited to having the crossover moved to the left side of the block - as most builders alfresco's seem to be on the opposite corner to the garage.

If we move the crossover, we'll more likely fit on a house with it's major outlooks to the trees on the right of the picture. So, we'd be more private ( until they build on it ). That direction is up hill though.

If we leave the crossover as is, we will look out onto next door's house - but we'll also be looking downhill., which I think is better. We'd lose more garden area though as the right side of the block tapers out, so we would be gaining garden behind the garage. Not ideal.

Firstly though, ( excuse my ignorance ), which way would the suntrack over the house? I have marked north on - that's assuming google maps orientate themselves with north directly up the screen.

If the sun tracks West to East ( Left to Right on the plan ), then we'd be better to move the crossover so we have the alfresco on the right and get the sun on the afternoon / evening. We both work full time, so would get the best use from light on an evening mostly.

If the sun tracks right to left, then we may leave as is and go for a Simonds Amberliea with windows down the left side - giving views down the hill ( or straight onto next doors wall ).

Comments would be appreciated.

Thanks.

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg152/besterfield/northphoto.jpg

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VJ · Dec 06, 2007 1:03 pm

As far as I know, it's EAST-WEST. So, the sun rises in the EAST in the morning, NORTH mid-day and WEST in the afternoon.

Choose the plan that would maximise the winter sun by having living areas (and bigger windows) to the north and minimising windows to the left.

Hope I'm saying the right things.. :roll:

not an expert on this.. but that's what I know.

3timesbuilda · Dec 06, 2007 1:03 pm

hmmm... someones house appears to be built on your land. :lol:

Tony & Emma · Dec 06, 2007 1:09 pm

Thanks VJ. We may leave the crossover on the right then, and go for the alfresco on the top-left, ( North-West ), corner. That way we'll get the afternoon sun on that corner.

3times - lol. If we could just put a partition across it and use the bit that's on our land, we wont have to bother buklding!

The house is still there - due to be demolished soon. The main road isnt even surfaced yet, ( we're not titled until next September ).

Yak_Chat · Dec 06, 2007 1:57 pm

Quote:

If the sun tracks West to East ( Left to Right on the plan )

News to me - :wink:

But hey I've been so working so late the past fews weeks maybe the earth is spinning backwards.

Optimise it for North facing areas, you don't get much winter warmth from the west - as the warmth has gone from the sun by then.

I'd go for the view down the hill - much better to be looking over someone elses roof, than up into their windows and them looking into your living areas.

Some breif thoughts.
Steve

perryr · Dec 06, 2007 3:36 pm

Sun rises in the east, and sets in the west.

One thing to remember is that in winter the sun is closer to the horizon, and not so much directly overhead during the middle of the day.

Check this:

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This might help too:

http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/yourhome/technical/fs13.htm

Cheers

Tony & Emma · Dec 07, 2007 7:35 am

Great stuff, thanks for all the replies.

Looking at it again, with the info from you guys, I think we are probably better to leave the crossover alone and have the alfresco's to the rear left of the house to maximise afternoon / evening sun for after work.

We'll lose a bit of Garden this way, and wont look out onto the trees, but at least we'll have sunshine - after all, that's why we left the UK.

We are meeting Simonds, Henly and Porter Davis on Saturday for walkthroughs and pricing on an Amberlea, Sutton and Windsor 47 - so we'll see what they have to say about siting on our block.

We called the lady at AV Jennings about moving the crossover, she said there would be no problem as it has not been lais yet and would cost $300 for engineering and survey works to be carried out to make sure we could have it on the other side. She said we'd have to be quick though, as they will be laying it soon.

We thought about requesting to have an additional one, and making a crescent on-off drive. We'd obviously have to pay extra fees for that, but it would mean we could choose to have the garage on either side then.

perryr · Dec 07, 2007 7:45 am

I like the crescent driveway if the block is big enough - check with the council first though. Some councils don't like you to have two crossovers, and will ask you to remove one if you put in another one.

Let us know who you decide to go with!

Cheers