Wondering where to begin when it comes to designing a sustainable home?

Discover the single most impactful decision you’ll make for your home’s sustainability and comfort.

Learn how to design for orientation, so your home stays cool in Summer, warm in Winter, and feels fantastic to live in.

Listen to the episode now.

Hello! This is Episode 401. And we are beginning something on the podcast that I’m really looking forward to sharing with you, especially if you’re wanting to build or renovate in a more sustainable way, but feeling curious, confused or even overwhelmed about what that might mean.

This is the first episode of a podcast series called ‘44 Ways to Create Your Sustainable Home’. It’s inspired by my free e-guide of the same name, but in this series here on the podcast, I want to dive into more detail, actions you can take and ways you can apply this in your new build or renovation project, wherever you’re located.

And the first ‘way’ I’m kicking off with is, for me, what I believe is the single most impactful decision you will make for your home’s sustainability and comfort.

In over 30 years in this industry designing residential homes, I believe this way is also available to every one and every project, but only if you know and think about it early and embed it into your project’s design from the start.

We are talking about designing for your site’s orientation. This is about knowing how your existing or new home is or will be positioned on your site or block of land, and how its overall layout is designed to respond to the movement of the sun across your land.

All so you can keep your home cool in Summer and warm in Winter, without it costing a fortune in energy bills and artificial heating and cooling, whilst feeling fantastic to be in.

In this episode, I take you through what orientation actually means in practical terms, why it belongs at the very top of any sustainability strategy, how to think about the sun’s movement for your site, and how to apply these principles in your project, whether you’re building new or renovating an existing home.

Heating and cooling typically accounts for around 40% of your home’s energy use. It’s usually the single largest category of energy use in a home.

A home that has not been designed to work with the sun’s movement will fight you on this for its entire lifespan. It will absorb heat in summer through poorly oriented windows and insufficient external shading. It will fail to capture warmth in winter because the sun’s energy has been ignored or blocked. And it will require mechanical systems running consistently and expensively to compensate for what good design could have provided from a freely available asset.

The inverse is equally true. A home with thoughtful orientation and appropriate shading can dramatically reduce the need for mechanical heating and cooling. In temperate climates specifically, a well-oriented, well-shaded, well-insulated home can operate without additional mechanical heating or cooling for the vast majority of the year.

And here is the critical thing about orientation that distinguishes it from almost everything else in this series: it cannot be revised after the fact.

Every other thing we cover in the ‘44 Ways’ can, to some degree, be improved over time. Insulation can be upgraded. Windows can be replaced. Appliances can be swapped out. Materials can be changed in a renovation. But the orientation of a home, the direction it faces on its site and the relationship it has with the movement of the sun, is determined when the floor plan is finalised and positioned.

In this Episode, we cover:

• What orientation actually means, and why ‘north-facing’ at the rear matters more than ‘north-facing’ at the street
• How the sun moves through the sky, and why its arc changes between Summer and Winter
• Why designing for orientation is the most important sustainability decision you can make in your project
• What designing for orientation looks like in practice, and how to think about positioning your primary living areas, bedrooms, west-facing rooms and south-facing rooms
• How to think about orientation if you’re renovating an existing home
• A simple first step you can take to begin understanding orientation on your site

Plus a whole lot more.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE NOW.

RESOURCES

Sun Seeker app >>> https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sun-seeker-sunlight-tracker/id330247123 

Sun Surveyor app >>> https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sun-surveyor-lite/id552754407 

NatHERS Climate Zones >>> https://www.nathers.gov.au/nathers-accredited-software/nathers-climate-zones-and-weather-files 

Your Home (Australian Government resource) >>> https://www.yourhome.gov.au/ 

’44 Ways to Create a Sustainable Home’ e-guide >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/ways 

Access the support and guidance you need to be confident and empowered when renovating and building your family home inside my signature online program, HOME METHOD >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/the-home-method/

Learn more about how to interview and select the right builder with the Choose Your  Builder mini-course >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/choose-your-builder