Orientation of Your Home
Orientation refers to the placement of your home on the site. Depending on where you’re living, the orientation of your home can have significant impacts on your home’s passive heating and cooling abilities.
Why do we care about orientation?
The main reason is to maximise natural lighting in the home. Australia, being south of the equator, we generally have the sun coming in from the north throughout the day as it rises in the east and sets in the west. A preference for morning or afternoon sun can come into play, but generally, the desire is to orient the living areas of the home towards the north to maximise the hours of sunlight.
Orientating a dwelling with living areas and larger windows on the north-facing side typically optimises sunlight throughout the day. Not only is this going to assist with passive heating in your home during the colder months, but the access to natural lighting has been well studied to influence wellbeing and have a positive social impact.
In some climates however the orientation can be a focus for optimising shade and airflow. This assists in the passive cooling of your home. Local data for your area will be particularly helpful in finding prevailing winds (e.g. variable cool breezes from the south).
