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how you position your house is relative to many factors...including the lot. It kinda depends on your lifestyle. If you are a morning person, position your home so the window in your bedroom faces east.
If you like warm afternoon sun and you live in the north, put your main living area windows to the west.
If you live in the south, you may want to avoid any windows or only small windows on the west so they won't heat up with the afternoon sun.
Skylights and trees (for shade) and scenic views can make a difference also.
The north side of a house is often cold, so you won't want a lot of windows there (to let in cold air) if you live in the north.
Why does ice in houses facing the south or southwest in the northern hemisphere melt faster??
In the winter, the sun rises in the southeast, stays lower along the southern horizon, and sets in the southwest. The sun shines on the south side of the house for the entire day.
In the summer, the sun rises in the northeast, makes a long trajectory overhead, and sets in the northwest horizon.
Google is your friend.
If you want a backyard vegetable garden close to your house, you want a house that faces north. If you don't want to shovel snow off your walk every time it snows, you want a house that faces south, or at the very least west or southwest.
The overhead position of the sun relative to the earth moves between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn throughout the year. So if you are north of the Tropic of Cancer (I presume you are, since you talk about ice on houses), the sun will always be to the south of you. At the height of the northern summer, when the sun is closest to the Tropic of Cancer, the sun will be a little south for its daily trajectory. At the height of the northern winter the sun will be closest to the Tropic of Capricorn and will be quite a long way south, staying lower above the horizon. So the southern side will get always get more sun than the northern side, and will be warmer.
Feng Shui is an interest of mine and over the years I've read a few books on the subject.
My favorite book (and I know because it is the most worn and taped!) is: Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life by Karen Rauch Carter. She takes a more relaxed and fun approach to Feng Shui (and life) with a sense of whimsy and humor.
Definitely good information and I agree with that.
Overhangs on south-facing windows are a no-brainer for anyone considering them for energy conservation and comfort-control reasons. Northern exposure provide no benefit there. Similarly, because the sun is so low in the sky rising from the East, East-facing windows really get a very negligible benefit from overhangs as well. West-facing windows get a benefit from overhangs, but not quite as much as south-facing. I typically recommend minimizing west-facing window area and utilizing overhangs on the west-facing windows you do have.
One thing to keep in mind is that, in a perfect world where homes were actually designed well and designed individually for the site they are built on versus focusing nearly purely on aesthetics and finishes, EACH house would be scrutinized for window placement, overhangs, insulation type, etc. on each wall of the house for each unique house and location. Unfortunately, they come up with standard house plans today. And while the same exact house may work great on a south-facing lot, put the same exact house on the other side of hte street and the electric bill and occupant comfort may be EXTREMELY different! Unfortunately most builders don't care or think about that.
There are free programs out there as well as very nice professional programs that help you do energy modeling of buildings. Not only do you need to consider which side of the house overhangs go on, you also need to determine the length of the overhang. If you are building a custom dream house, I highly recommend tinkering with at least a free energy modeling program. You can start with the "rules of thumb" about window to wall ratios and overhangs etc. and then input your house using those. From there you can actually adjust the overhang...say from 1' to 2' and see how big of a difference in energy savings it is. You will see that a 1' overhang on the south side may not do much, but a 2'+ overhang helps a lot depending on your specific orientation. Those kinds of things are key to maximizing the efficiency of your design.
I think i am getting it.. (i know, i'm quite slow).. but something is wrong though.. the earth rotates anti-clockwise looking down from the north pole.. And if it's winter, the place is slanted AWAY from the sun.. I understand until that part.. If I think it that way, the sun is actually rising from southwest and sets in southeast, isn't it? (yes, i do know the saying that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west)..
oh and thank you for all those who replied, and I actually know why ice melt faster, because during winter, northern hemisphere is slanted AWAY from the sun, so the sun is shining from the bottom of the earth. (not really the bottom, but you get my point)..
Don't forget that the street direction also comes into play. If the street runs east west then the house will be blocked from the sun in the morning by the house on that side and in the evening by the one on that side. So on that street your main exposure to sun and winter winds will the north and south. Placing the house on the south side of the street will give the rear of the house the winter sun. On the north side the front.
Our house sits on the south side of an east west street. The two shade trees we planted in back are deciduous and both lose their leaves early in the fall and leaf out late in spring. One is a Kentucky Coffee tree, the other an ash (I would not recommend planting an ash tree now). The Kentucky Coffee tree is a stump tree, so-called because the majority of the tree is the green growth which drops over the winter and there is little to stop the sun.
We also added the majority of the windows on the south for the winter sun. As a result, in dead of winter, when it's 10 degrees out on a sunny day, we open all the blinds on the south side of the house and the furnace doesn't run during the middle of the day. The thermostat is in a hall in the middle of the house.
On the down side our driveway slopes down to the street so it never gets sun in winter. Sucks.
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Man, i have to learn A WHOLE DAMN LOT MORE.. *sigh*
