Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Need suggestions and advice on an odd shaped north facin 4Oct 30, 2017 7:47 am I can see why you’ve designed the house this way, as the wider end of your block is to the front. I agree with Arcadelt and stealing light, so to get north sun into your living areas, you could add clerestory windows to the living/dining area. Is that a courtyard between dining and MBR? Can you extend the MBR slightly past the garage and have a tall narrow window facing north? Or how about swapping MBR and theatre so you get to wake to the lovely view and morning light? Being a theatre I assume blinds will usually be shut when in use! Re: Need suggestions and advice on an odd shaped north facin 5Oct 30, 2017 12:19 pm Ruthnpal And how would you 'steal' northern light? When you can't point your living areas to the north, it moves away from being about the floor plan and into the design of the actual house. As Hillsbuilds has suggested, you could use windows and the roof line in clever ways to point windows to the north. However, solar passive is not just about letting the sun in, but also avoiding thermally-leaky windows where they provide no thermal benefit. Unfortunately, if you have nice views to the east, south or west that you want to maximise, you have to compromise and/or build in very expensive highly-efficient glazing solutions such as double- or triple-glazed windows that are thermally broken. Please have a look at this excellent Government developed website, especially the sections on passive design and energy. If you prefer reading books, you can pay to get it in book form too. Re: Need suggestions and advice on an odd shaped north facin 6Oct 30, 2017 2:04 pm Thanks Hillsbuilds I searched clerestory windows and wow, they look great. Appreciate your input re: swapping theater and MBR. I think it's a great idea. It'll still give us the privacy from the kids area. It's tricky now that we just got word on what the price of land will be once released. It is much lower than we anticipated and my partner now wants to see if we can get the other corner block on the other end of the street. It's 1000m2 but will be having views on the west and south of the block. I'm adamant about this as I've read it is the worst part to have living areas and it'll mean possibly not achieving the seamless indoor and outdoor open plan living I had in mind. Another thing I love about this design I drew up is the connection of the kitchen, wip and laundry all in one line. I do almost all chores and this is the best set up for functionality in my opinion. Anyway, thank you again for your your advice. I love it. Now just to hopefully keep our original plan for the smaller corner block than the bigger but not so greatly orientated one. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Need suggestions and advice on an odd shaped north facin 7Oct 30, 2017 2:15 pm arcadelt Ruthnpal And how would you 'steal' northern light? When you can't point your living areas to the north, it moves away from being about the floor plan and into the design of the actual house. As Hillsbuilds has suggested, you could use windows and the roof line in clever ways to point windows to the north. However, solar passive is not just about letting the sun in, but also avoiding thermally-leaky windows where they provide no thermal benefit. Unfortunately, if you have nice views to the east, south or west that you want to maximise, you have to compromise and/or build in very expensive highly-efficient glazing solutions such as double- or triple-glazed windows that are thermally broken. Please have a look at this excellent Government developed website, especially the sections on passive design and energy. If you prefer reading books, you can pay to get it in book form too. Thanks @arcdelt. Appreciate your input. I saw a photo of a build on the windows forum. Beautiful and a true solar passive home. I'm envious! Upon asking council about the block, we were also told that it might be in or next to a bushfire zone which might see us spending more on making it to acceptable standard let alone extra cost on double glazing. I wish we had a way around it. thanks again for the advice Re: Need suggestions and advice on an odd shaped north facin 8Nov 12, 2017 10:30 am To get a better understanding of passive solar design, as has been suggested, have a good read of the yourhome.gov.au website,
http://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design In its simplest terms, for most Australian climates, passive design is all about locating your living areas (& a large proportion of your glazing) facing north. Unfortunately, if passive design is important to you, your block is not a great choice from a passive design perspective. No northern frontage block is. This is because the large double garage blocks northern light from entering the home. Also, to have living areas facing north, they must face the street in this case, but most people would prefer living areas to face the backyard (south for you). So, from a passive design perspective, a southern frontage, like block 10, would be a much better choice. However, there are obviously other positive points with this block, with its views & access to the pond. So, although you won't be able to build the perfect passive solar, you can still use these principles to improve the efficiency & comfort of your home. As has been mentioned, your main problem will be getting northern sunlight to your living areas, which you've located at the rear of your home. The garage prevents this. The use of clerestory windows is a good suggestion to steal northern light from behind the garage. If you use your slope, building a split level home, you may be able to increase the height of your clerestory windows, a larger glazing area will allow more sunlight in. As mentioned, glass is a poor insulator, & as heat rises, clerestory windows can leak a lot of heat in winter. So double glazing these would be advisable. If they can be opened on summer evenings they can be very effective at cooling the home on summer nights. Another option may be to have a carport, instead of a garage. This will allow more northern light into your home, thought it won't allow direct winter sunlight in, so won't help with passive heating. A third option would be to detach the garage from the home, locating it as far forward on the block as possible. Locating the home as close to the rear as possible, to limit overshadowing from the garage. Unfortunately, as the block narrows to the rear, this approach won't be quite so effective. EDIT: I now see you've posted a site plan for block 17. Although it's also a northern frontage, it should give more scope for passive design than block 20, as it has a much longer northern aspect. Though, for passive design, you want your living areas to face north, which is the street. No other block choices? If the blocks are cheaper than expected, it would be nice to get a southern frontage block (these are usually a little more expensive). Re: Need suggestions and advice on an odd shaped north facin 9Nov 12, 2017 11:34 am Ruthnpal, if you do opt for that first block, how about trying to design a U-shaped house, extending that rear living area, as far as possible to the east. This way some of that rear living area will have access to northern sunlight. Also if you use a skillion roof, & north facing clerestories all of that rear section will have access to northern light. Re: Need suggestions and advice on an odd shaped north facin 10Nov 12, 2017 2:28 pm ddarroch Ruthnpal, if you do opt for that first block, how about trying to design a U-shaped house, extending that rear living area, as far as possible to the east. This way some of that rear living area will have access to northern sunlight. Also if you use a skillion roof, & north facing clerestories all of that rear section will have access to northern light. Thank you for your very detailed response ddarroch! I appreciate it immensely! We have now opted for the bigger block #17 and plan to do a U-shaped house for that. Basically putting an open plan living kitchen and dining in one horizontal line which will be at the bottom of the U. Have windows on one side to let northern light in and hopefully, floor to ceiling sliding or bifolds to the rear. On the right side of the U will be the master and garage and on the left will be the rest of the rooms. I have yet to draw them out to scale and I shall post it as soon as im finished. Our biggest challenge will be to hopefully achieve a bal 19 instead of bal 29 as per council. This block is close to dense tall trees in a bushfire zone. Re: Need suggestions and advice on an odd shaped north facin 11Nov 12, 2017 6:06 pm I'd advised a U-shaped house for block 10, as it has a narrow frontage & a very narrow rear. Plus I hadn't thought of other solutions to get sunlight all the way back to the living areas.
But be aware, that there are downsides to this approach. The northern & southern wings must be quite far apart too prevent the northern wing overshadowing the southern (living room) wing in winter. So you'll need quite a few rooms to face east or west, not great for summer. The living room wing still won't receive northern sun all day, unless it also incorporates clerestory windows. But the main problem with this house shape is cost. The higher the external surface area of the build, the higher the cost. As more materials are required, more waterproofing, more insulation, more windows, & I'd expect it may also make it tougher to achieve your BAL rating (though I'm no expert). The build with the lowest external surface area, so lowest cost, would be a perfect square. But this is not good in our climate from a passive design point of view. As it's hard to get winter sunlight to much of the house, or cooling summer breezes. A good comprise is a rectangular house. It's quite cheap to build, & if orientated correctly, all receive abundant winter sunlight & summer breezes. Block 17 has a very large northern frontage, making it the perfect candidate for a rectangular build. I think this is a far better solution for this block. But if you want rear living areas to enjoy the view, how do you get winter sunshine to your living areas? The answer, again, is northern clerestory windows! This is the perfect shaped house for northern clerestory windows! A rectangular house, with longer sides facing north & south, can have a split skillion roof design, & north facing clerestory windows running its full length. This will offer all southern rooms access to northern sunlight. Whether they be living areas, hallways, internal bathrooms etc. I'll have a quick look on Google & post a couple of examples below. This rectangular design will also offer a good opportunity to incorporate north facing solar PV, which I think is important. Though the roof pitch will likely be less than ideal. Re: Need suggestions and advice on an odd shaped north facin 12Nov 12, 2017 6:17 pm Here are a couple of examples, just to give you an idea of the split skillion roof design, & how the clerestory windows would look. I particularly like the look of this first example. This would be the view from the front of the house. Obviously there would be less glazing from the front of the house, particularly as these rooms would be bedrooms facing the street. You can see how the clerestory windows would light the rear rooms. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Again, northern sunlight entering rear rooms of the house through clerestory windows. In this case it appears to be a double storey, but could work for a split level home. Like all northern windows eave length is important for clerestory windows, so winter sunlight will be admitted, while summer sun is shaded. Re: Need suggestions and advice on an odd shaped north facin 13Nov 12, 2017 6:44 pm A couple of issues with the split skillion - clerestory approach.
Firstly, all rooms with clerestory windows will need cathedral ceilings. Cathedral ceilings can look & feel great, particularly in living areas. But be aware that they can increase winter heating requirements, as a larger volume of air needs to be heated. If you do opt for this approach I'd recommended increasing the ceiling insulation levels well above the minimum code, as it's nearly impossible to increase insulation levels at a later date. Secondly, cost. A split skillion with clerestory windows & cathedral ceilings will cost more than a normal roof design. Though it's unlikely to cost more than a U-shaped house, & is a far, far better solution in my opinion. Re: Need suggestions and advice on an odd shaped north facin 14Nov 12, 2017 7:08 pm One other option, as block 17 is so wide, would be to really stretch out the rectangular building envelope to the east & west. This may result in parts of the house being only one room deep. For example, a central section incorporating the living area may be only one room deep, having both northern & southern windows. In this case the skillion roof & clerestory windows wouldn't be required. You'd also get great cross-ventilation, with breezes flowing through the living area, keeping it cool in summer. The kids bedrooms could be behind the garage, facing south. Bedrooms can be darker & cooler, so don't require northern light, but if you wanted it you could add clerestories here, or to hallways. The master could be at the opposite end of the house, & depending on room, may also be one room deep, with north & south windows. Or if other rooms are required here, like a second living area, & a section is two rooms deep, clerestory windows could be incorporated into this section.
Stretching out the building envelope to this level will increase the external surface area, increasing cost, but if no/fewer skillion roof/clerestory windows are required, then cost will come down. Thus design will also give expanses of northern roof, with ideal pitch for solar PV. EDIT: What's the dashed line on block 17? If it's an easement it may limit your building envelope options, as may your BAL requirements. Which may make it impossible to stretch out your build to these levels. Re: Need suggestions and advice on an odd shaped north facin 15Nov 12, 2017 7:40 pm Whoops, I thought the block sloped down to the street, not from the street. Ignore any suggestions I had about split levels. This was to minimize cathedral ceiling roof pitch / increase height of clerestories. But, as the slope is the opposite of what I though, any split will have the opposite effect to that desired. Re: Need suggestions and advice on an odd shaped north facin 16Nov 13, 2017 8:12 am Just been reading this blog, which I think is very applicable to these blocks, particularly block 17. https://undercoverarchitect.com/how-do- ... -new-home/ The warning is on the sticker on the door too. Second the aluminium powdercoat 6 18101 Hi, Looking to add an ensuite to one of the bedrooms and make it a Master BR. Please see the attached current floorplan. Need suggestions on what's the best way to do… 0 7325 It might be a bit darker in the mornings but the light is still light, so you should be getting it. Similar to what you see from your western windows 3 19909 |