What direction does your house face?

[mom2akm]

We're thinking about moving to another house and the direction of the house is one of the consideration. From observation, north facing houses require more snow shoveling and the house tends to be colder in winter.

The direction of the house is where your house's front door is facing. Our existing house has the front door facing west so it's west facing. It is quite hot in the summer but we spend most of our time at the back of the house so it doesn't bother us.

Please tell me: what is the direction of your house? How much sun do you get in the winter and summer? Is there anything that the direction of the house is bothering you?

TIA!

[clc053103]

our house faces East. So the sun rises on the front and sets in the back. I like that the sun rises on our bedroom side of the house and helps rouse me! I didn't like that it made it harder to make DS's nursery dark for naps, as it's in the back of the house, but I liked that the room was nice and toasty in the winter from the afternoon sun. Because of this positioning, our driveway gets some sort of sun most of the day (the driveway is ont eh side of the house), so for the snow shoveling aspect I think you would need to consider the location of the driveway as well as the positioning, if my driveway was out front it would only get sun 1/2 the day.

[WatchingThemGrow]

East-facing. I think our tree canopy is what I like more about our house than anything about the direction of it, in terms of heat/sun. Of course our town is considering a "tree rule" that at least 40% of your land must be shaded by trees. Is that nuts or what?

Two friends live in west-facing homes and 1)the front door is scorching hot all afternoon, so much so that I wouldn't even consider buying her neighbor's house and 2)the other one's swing set is such that the kids swinging on the swingset in the afternoon are directly facing the sun. That would give me a headache and a sunburn.

[KrisM]

Ours faces north. Yes, the snow doesn't melt on the driveway as quickly as our neighbors across the street.

Our house is very warm though, because our family room is in back and so faces south.

That is the worse thing, really. Having the backyard and deck on the south side - very little shade in the summer unless you have big trees or something. I wish we faced west.

Edited to fix: the direction! I want to face west so that the backyard is shaded by the house in the evening. My parents does this and it is nice to be outside in the evening.

[WitMom]

Both this house and our previous house face east, and I hate it. After our first east facing house, I swore never again. Well, here we are with another east facing house. Our main living areas are on the back side (west side) of the house, and it becomes uncomfortably warm in the afternoon in the summer. Since our backyard is on the west side of the house, it also makes it too hot to play out there in the afternoons and early evenings. My other gripe is that when we open our windows, we don't seem to get as much of a cross-breezee with an east-west house as with a north-south house.

[scrooks]

Originally Posted by KrisM

Ours faces north. Yes, the snow doesn't melt on the driveway as quickly as our neighbors across the street.

Our house is very warm though, because our family room is in back and so faces south.

That is the worse thing, really. Having the backyard and deck on the south side - very little shade in the summer unless you have big trees or something. I wish we faced east.

This is exactly like our house. I like our family room being warm but I hate the fact that our deck is unusable unless we put up one of those canvas gazebos. We lost our first one in a big wind storm.

[khm]

Our last two houses have faced south, love it for the snow melt. It is amazing how much it helps. We've often commented that we lucked out there (it wasn't a factor when we bought, just appreciate it now!)

I can't think of anything I dislike about it, an area of our backyard doesn't get a lot of sun, but that's because of a massive amount of trees, not the direction....

[almostamom]

Our house faces west. We purposely bought this lot for that reason. The entire back of our house is windows and I didn't want the heat of the afternoon sun on those windows. (Our neighbors have the same model and they face east. The glass in their back sliding door has shattered from the heat.) The front of our house gets the afternoon sun, but for our model that's only one room and the garages. We also have a shady backyard in the afternoon and evening which I like for when we are swimming in the summer (and summer here is pretty much the beginning of May - mid-October).

Linda

[lchang25000]

Originally Posted by almostamom

Our house faces west. We purposely bought this lot for that reason. The entire back of our house is windows and I didn't want the heat of the afternoon sun on those windows. The front of our house gets the afternoon sun, but for our model that's only one room and the garages.

Same as our house, that way, the snow on the driveway melts very quickly. DS's bedroom gets the afternoon heat shining in so his room is the warmest in the winter, but also hottest in the summer. The front of the house has the office, garage windows, front door, and DS's room so all that gets plenty of sun. The back of our house contains a lot of windows also and it's where our living room, dining area, kitchen, master bedroom, and deck/backyard is so it gets plenty of shade which is very nice in the summer time. There is always a breeze in the backyard (due to the hill that is behind us) in the warmer months so it helps keep it nice and cool even though the temp outside is in the 90s.

[catpagmo]

Ours faces west, too. I prefer it, actually. The front of the house has the living room and entry and garage. The back of the house (where we spend the majority of our time) faces east, so we get sun in the morning, and shade in the afternoon/evening. The back yard is nice and cool in the summer, as is our deck, where we spend a lot of time in the spring/summer.