New house build - orientation for sun

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D.W

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#279936 17-Nov-2020 23:44

Hoping for some feedback on this one, we've recently secured a section to build on, it has been difficult and we didn't have a lot of choice, so tried to pick the best of what was available. There were no sections running east to west, so we've had to go with a section where the north face is street-side.

Any thoughts on this house plan? I've added a couple of red lines to show where we're considering adding windows (left side originally had two small windows, we've proposed that be changed to one larger window in the centre, right side had no window at all, we've proposed one large window there also, street facing currently has one large window but for privacy's sake we'd prefer that be two smaller windows, and have space for TV in middle of that wall, but that isn't going to help with the sun either I guess).

The green line shows an internal wall with cavity slider, I've also asked if this wall is required (I'm guessing it might be), as we'd prefer sunlight be able to make it beyond that front living area to the kitchen/dining area. The street-facing living area would likely only really be used in the evenings, we spend much more time in kitchen/dining, but otherwise would love to try stick with this plan if we can make it work. Our pick would've been to keep the internal wall so that living area can be closed from rest of house, but we'd value the sun more if removing the wall is going to help.

Any other thoughts? We're not too worried about early morning sun, don't care so much about the bedrooms (particularly in the morning), but would hate to be waiting until late afternoon to start getting sun into our kitchen/dining area.

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#2605805 18-Nov-2020 07:28

My kitchen / dining area has lots of windows that are west facing. It heats up to almost 40 degrees in summer. Looks like yours might be the same. Put in good air conditioning, shade trees, or something else to prevent if you like.

I'd also remove the windows behind the bed. Never liked them. Your call of course! Bedroom 4 will be super bright in the morning, get good curtains or even mirrored glass?

rogercruse

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#2605806 18-Nov-2020 07:32

Like your plan shown, our newly built house has the kitchen in the middle of the house, so we has a SolaTube installed. Just make sure that your roof structure will allow the sun-tunnel to be placed in the most advantageous position

rogercruse

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#2605810 18-Nov-2020 07:46

Suggestions:

Move the Laundry next to the garage. Then you can combine the garage and laundry into one slightly bigger space with carpet on the floor and insulation on the garage door, so that the garage doubles as a drying space during cold / wet weather.

Oh, and add ceiling fan(s).

Dingbatt

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#2605811 18-Nov-2020 07:47

What part of the country are you?

Unless there is a purpose (view, outdoor area, etc) to have all the living on the western side then you may want to consider a mirror image of what you posted. The reason being, in the winter the ‘living’ side of the house is warmed by the morning sun, and in the summer, the living side is shielded from afternoon sun. Careful design of overhangs will allow solar gain in winter while providing shade in the summer.

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Eva888

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#2605821 18-Nov-2020 08:25

Biggest mistake we made when we built was having too many windows in the living area which made any furniture placement awkward and you really need to plan placement of the TV carefully as it won’t be easy to change the configuration later if you don’t have the wall space. Watching TV between two windows with light streaming onto your eyes will force you to close curtains thus cancelling the benefits of windows on sunny side.

Consider not placing windows dead center of each wall but either grouped in one corner, or towards one side of a wall instead of center. That gives you precious wall space. Plan the roof gables so you can also have a window in the roof. Consider wide narrow windows near the ceiling to let light and sun in but give you wall space and privacy underneath. Think of sill height of windows so a sofa with a higher back or cabinet can clear it. These are all the things I wished we had thought of so hope this gives food for thought.

We planned in summer and after building realised how much the sun angle changed over the seasons and how much we lost. We also didn’t realise the impact of next door’s two storey house on the West side blocking precious winter sun.

Your green wall may not need to go up to the ceiling, it could be a low divider wall so sofa still sits against it and have a structural beam above.

PolicyGuy

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#2605826 18-Nov-2020 08:35

You don't seem (I find it it hard to judge) to have a lot of North- to NNW-facing roof space to mount your PV panels on.
If I was building a house that size, I'd be planning on having 4kw or 5kw - eight to ten panels - of PV generation on the roof.

I'm pretty sure that even if you don't the person who buys it off you (one day) will put up PV panels.

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D.W

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#2605828 18-Nov-2020 08:40

Dingbatt:

What part of the country are you?

Unless there is a purpose (view, outdoor area, etc) to have all the living on the western side then you may want to consider a mirror image of what you posted. The reason being, in the winter the ‘living’ side of the house is warmed by the morning sun, and in the summer, the living side is shielded from afternoon sun. Careful design of overhangs will allow solar gain in winter while providing shade in the summer.

We're in Canterbury (Lincoln). We're all off to work or school 5 days a week, so figured maximizing afternoon sun was preferable to morning as usually nobody is home.

rogercruse

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#2605829 18-Nov-2020 08:45

Eva888: ... Consider not placing windows dead center of each wall but either grouped in one corner, or towards one side of a wall instead of center. That gives you precious wall space...

Totally agree. And we changed any floor to ceiling windows to half wall / half window to improve placement of furniture.

sen8or

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#2605830 18-Nov-2020 08:45

What part of the country are you in?

If anywhere that gets cold in winter, a single heat pump in that location isn't going to work. Our first house build in Chch was a similar situation, single heatpump in living/dining and whilst that area could be warmed/cooled, nowhere else in the house was covered. I'd put in at least a 2nd heat pump (possibly on the wall outside bdrm4 providing you have the doors open leading off the hallway) but preferably a ducted heat pump, you'll need probably a 12kw system minimum. Costly investment but after our first winter with proper heating in our new place, wouldn't go back.

Even if that green line wall is structural, there are engineering ways around it, just expect it to cost a few $. Removing that wall will however make that heat pump questionable (in terms of size / capacity).

We did a lot of changes to our plan, some we are a bit ho hum about (stone bench top, if you go that way, make sure its properly sealed / not susceptible to staining) whilst others we couldn't be happier (carpet in the garage & garage walls lined with wood panels, upgraded ensuite to tiled floor / shower) and then there are the ones we didn't do that we now wish we had (we kept a bath in the main bathroom "for resale", its just a dust gatherer, we didn't upgrade main bathroom to tiled / tile shower - regret not doing it).

I'd also look carefully over the electrical allowance, this is often a very basic with bugger all sockets and lights. You should be able to fit out with PDL Iconic series for similar money as the 600 series (unless you go for alternative skins, then they get real expensive real quick)

sen8or

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#2605832 18-Nov-2020 08:48

Also in Lincoln, what subdivision is it?

We walk around ours (Flemington) and also Rosemerryn semi-frequently at different times of the day, its amazing the number of houses we see where the garage gets the best afternoon sun! I'd opt for afternoon sun in the living area over bedrooms any day

D.W

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#2605834 18-Nov-2020 08:51

sen8or:

What part of the country are you in?

If anywhere that gets cold in winter, a single heat pump in that location isn't going to work. Our first house build in Chch was a similar situation, single heatpump in living/dining and whilst that area could be warmed/cooled, nowhere else in the house was covered. I'd put in at least a 2nd heat pump (possibly on the wall outside bdrm4 providing you have the doors open leading off the hallway) but preferably a ducted heat pump, you'll need probably a 12kw system minimum. Costly investment but after our first winter with proper heating in our new place, wouldn't go back.

Even if that green line wall is structural, there are engineering ways around it, just expect it to cost a few $. Removing that wall will however make that heat pump questionable (in terms of size / capacity).

We did a lot of changes to our plan, some we are a bit ho hum about (stone bench top, if you go that way, make sure its properly sealed / not susceptible to staining) whilst others we couldn't be happier (carpet in the garage & garage walls lined with wood panels, upgraded ensuite to tiled floor / shower) and then there are the ones we didn't do that we now wish we had (we kept a bath in the main bathroom "for resale", its just a dust gatherer, we didn't upgrade main bathroom to tiled / tile shower - regret not doing it).

I'd also look carefully over the electrical allowance, this is often a very basic with bugger all sockets and lights. You should be able to fit out with PDL Iconic series for similar money as the 600 series (unless you go for alternative skins, then they get real expensive real quick)

Thanks, the plan is for a 2nd ducted heat pump, it's out of our budget at the moment but building company said we can install ducting during the build so we can get it installed later.

We have a heat pump in our current house for a very similar sized area (and shape) and we're happy with that, so I think that one will be OK for the kitchen/living areas.

We were planning on a stone bench top, and we're looking at tiled bathroom floors, we'd keep the bath as our kids use it all the time and will do so for several years at least. Have gone through electrical allowance and added a bit to that also. Consider tiled kitchen floors also but may need to stick with vinyl due to cost.

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D.W

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#2605836 18-Nov-2020 08:53

sen8or:

Also in Lincoln, what subdivision is it?

We walk around ours (Flemington) and also Rosemerryn semi-frequently at different times of the day, its amazing the number of houses we see where the garage gets the best afternoon sun! I'd opt for afternoon sun in the living area over bedrooms any day

Te Whariki. We're currently renting there also. Sold our house in Diamond Harbour earlier in the year and decided we'd try renting in Lincoln before committing to the area.

sen8or

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#2605844 18-Nov-2020 09:20

Unless you have a way to get the internal part of the ducted heat pump up into the roof after everything has been installed, I'd be wary of thinking you can do it later. They are large and heavy and may not fit through ceiling battens (if you have planned for attic storage in the garage, this may not be an issue). Your sparky will also need to run the pair coil up to the location where it may go and put penetration through to where the outdoor unit will sit. Make sure there is enough room on the pad for the unit to sit.

Dingbatt

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#2605907 18-Nov-2020 11:05

D.W:

Dingbatt:

What part of the country are you?

Unless there is a purpose (view, outdoor area, etc) to have all the living on the western side then you may want to consider a mirror image of what you posted. The reason being, in the winter the ‘living’ side of the house is warmed by the morning sun, and in the summer, the living side is shielded from afternoon sun. Careful design of overhangs will allow solar gain in winter while providing shade in the summer.

We're in Canterbury (Lincoln). We're all off to work or school 5 days a week, so figured maximizing afternoon sun was preferable to morning as usually nobody is home.

Part of the reason I asked for your location is that for many parts of the country shelter from the the prevailing sou-westerly winds is a benefit for outdoor areas. However (in my experience) this doesn’t tend to apply in Christchurch where shelter from the afternoon ‘barbecue-busting’ nor-easter coming in off Pegasus Bay is more important (it being too cold in a SW and too hot in a NW). Lincoln is probably well enough in the lee of Banks Peninsula to not be affected so markedly.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

Paul1977

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#2605923 18-Nov-2020 11:59

Everyone always says to build for the sun, but in summer this can have it's downsides. We have large windows facing north, west and east in the living/dining/kitchen area in our new house; and even with low-e glass (which reduces some of the solar gain) it gets freaking hot in there on a sunny day. We haven't got most of the curtains up yet, but hopefully they will make a noticeable difference to keep the heat down in summer when we can have them pulled across if required.

I suspect some of our issue is that we went with predominantly black brick as well. It gets very hot to touch on the outside, so I can only assume that much of that heat ends up inside the house (regardless of the insulation).

Coming from an old and poorly insulated house we put a lot of thought into making sure the new house would be warm, but didn't really consider that in summer the same measures might make the house too hot.

We're in Halswell, so not far from you.

EDIT: Can I ask what m2 the house is? Almost everything looks fairly well sized, so just wondering what it adds up to. Your garage might be a little on the small side though - I thought 5.8x5.8 was the smallest most companies seemed to do when we were looking at plans.

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