Have you ever felt scorched by the sun coming in through a window in the summer, in spite of air conditioning? Or have you ever longed for the winter sun that was just out of reach on the patio, while you shivered in the shade indoors? I have.
Sun light has been a big discussion as we design the dream house. One main trouble is that the angle of the sun is the same in March as it is in September.
The winter solstice and the summer solstice are easy to decide about and easy to deal with using well placed eaves and windows. However, while the sun in March may be quite comforting, the sun in September is usually something to avoid in southwest Idaho.
Even if the clouds are in the way, we can easily determine where the sun is.
Meet the Sun Seeker app
All this was made easier to evaluate with the Sun Seeker app that Greg found. (Android version here) It is one thing to have a general idea of where the sun is. It is quite another to know all the angles to a degree.
The app lets you choose any date and it will give the days times and angles for the location you are in. Since our current and temporary home is just a couple of minutes away from the dream house building site, we can look at everything from right here.
A very simple calendar to get things started.
How far out should your eaves go?
We have had to come down in favor of March sun, which meant trimming back the deck roof. Fortunately this is all just still on paper, so no large tools necessary.
It means that we will have to look into adjustable awnings for any late summer sun. This seems a nicer option than window shades, because it will preserve the awesome view of the Snake River and Owyhee Mountains.
I can feel the warmth of the March sun just looking at this!
How much difference does orientation make?
Building on our lot, we have the option of turning the house this way or that. We can also design window placement to keep most of our windows to the south and east. We won’t have the typical front entry windows with our front door facing north. The western side will be buffered by the garage and shop.
This helps us make use of the angle of the sun even more. The hot summer evening sun comes mostly from the west, a fact which was made clear on the Sun Seeker app. During the middle of a summer day, the sun’s angle is higher, so it doesn’t take as much of an eave to block it.
One of the longest days of the year in understandable graph form.
One more reason to move closer to the building site.
The home we are in now has nearly perfect orientation, if not perfect eaves. Here in the middle of winter we are greatly enjoying our kitchen and dining area being flooded with sunlight during the middle of the day. This is the same direction that our main windows will face in the dream house.
An aerial view of sun angles in January where we live now.
Getting to know the local wind patterns
We thought it would be handy to live closer to the building site for the convenience of going back and forth. It is also being very useful for evaluating house orientation and how the wind blows!
Having lived only 30 minutes away for 25 years, we assumed we knew the wind patterns. It turns out that the wind blows differently down by the river here. The orientation of the three sided animal shed makes this point better than the house.
If the shed had been oriented the way it is in our previous home, it would have been more of a potential cyclone maker, providing corners for the wind to twist, while still depositing all kinds of dirt in the shed. Here it blocks the wind perfectly even when it is howling.
Know thy building lot
The moral of the story seems to be to spend as much time as possible on and near your building site as you can while designing your house. If you really want to design your home to suit its location, you need to know that location as intimately as you can.
