House Facing North, South, east, or West?

[cBach]

Originally Posted by Austin97

our old house was south facing, I think that is by far the best direction. It turns out when it is too hot a pool is not fun, the north side pool was great as the pool didnt get quite as much sun, but sometimes still too much. South facing means solar panels on the front portion of the roof which was ugly

The house was shaded to the east and west by other houses.

big trees in the front yard shaded the front of the house (didnt want them in the back because they drop leaves into the pool).

Our rental faces west so the garage gets really hot. Too hot to store heat sensitive items.

Our new house faces east and has a great view. Tons of giant windows facing west. The garage and garage attic stay nice and cool. We havent moved in yet, so we will still have to see how bad west facing is in the summer.

Good point about the garage. Another reason why my plan about a north facing home is wise. The garage is facing north which means the sun never shines into it, keeping it cooler in the hot summer months.

For pools with too much sun exposure, a fountain in the pool cools the pool down a bit as it works on evaporation.

It's not fun to swim in the shade on an early spring day in a pool even if it's heated because when you get out you freeze. If it's in the sun then it feels great.

[ClaraC]

In certain parts of Austin that are becoming predominantly Asian and Indian, you're at great advantage in the selling market if you have a house that faces East and you can see the back door to the house when you stand in the open front doorway, creating a straight "energy field" that enters East and exits West.

Who knew.

[Bp25]

Originally Posted by ClaraC

In certain parts of Austin that are becoming predominantly Asian and Indian, you're at great advantage in the selling market if you have a house that faces East and you can see the back door to the house when you stand in the open front doorway, creating a straight "energy field" that enters East and exits West.

Who knew.

True, except for the fact that Inidians rarely buy preowned homes. Most of them will opt for new homes if they can afford.

[cBach]

Originally Posted by ClaraC

In certain parts of Austin that are becoming predominantly Asian and Indian, you're at great advantage in the selling market if you have a house that faces East and you can see the back door to the house when you stand in the open front doorway, creating a straight "energy field" that enters East and exits West.

Who knew.

Wow Indians would love the 9th Ward of New Orleans with its east to west shotgun houses...

[Mimmyu]

Front and back doors being aligned is bad for Feng Shui.

[Dynamoo]

Originally Posted by pbnj07

It's a relatively insignificant detail (but I like to cover all the bases), but are there any benefits in which direction an Austin home faces?

You want your front door/bedroom windows to face Northeast, so that it gets early morning sun, but doesn't face the sun directly in the summer.

You want your living spaces, dining room, back windows to face Southwest, so that it gets afternoon and early evening light, warmth in the wintertime, but doesn't directly face the sun in the summer.

These directions are also ideal placements under Feng Shui and Vastu.

[cBach]

Originally Posted by Dynamoo

You want your front door/bedroom windows to face Northeast, so that it gets early morning sun, but doesn't face the sun directly in the summer.

You want your living spaces, dining room, back windows to face Southwest, so that it gets afternoon and early evening light, warmth in the wintertime, but doesn't directly face the sun in the summer.

These directions are also ideal placements under Feng Shui and Vastu.

Actually this creates non-ideal conditions in the winter. This means the front of the house is in perpetual shade in the winter but sun in the summer so it makes it difficult to decide which kind of bushes/flowers to plant.

This also creates a situation where half of your house gets sunrise and sunset in the summer as each corner of your house is effectively a compass point. You get two walls with extreme seasonal variation and two walls with high solar input.

This is, however, a nice orientation for a corner lot and a backyard pool as the backyard gets adequate sun and the corner lot provides nice various shade and sun areas to do different things.

[LandAndSea]

After living in an apartment for two years with a courtyard view and windows facing west it got very hot in the evenings, and made it difficult to wake up in the mornings. I now live in an apartment with a courtyard view and windows facing east and I wake up easier in the mornings and it's cooler in the evenings.

I've also lived in houses and so I would follow a similar plan in the future - bedroom windows (and kitchen) facing east.

[BijouBaby]

I found a very cool website that shows you the direction of the sun throughout the day at a particular address: Suncalc.org

Put in the address of the property in the "Computation path for the sun:" field in the upper left, then use the slider at the top to zoom through the hours of the day to see exactly how the sun will hit your house at any time of the day, as well as a lot of other interesting information in the left column.

I wish I had discovered this before I bought my current house.