How to find which direction your house faces

Knowing which direction your house faces tells you a lot: which rooms wake up in sunlight, where the garden is warm in the afternoon, whether the balcony will be pleasant or scorching in July. Here are four ways to find out, from quick to precise.

1. Use an online map

Open a map in satellite or map view, find your house, and look at how it sits relative to the top of the map (which is north in almost all online maps). The front of the house usually faces the street. If your street runs from west to east and your house is on the north side of it, your front faces south.

The sun path over my house tool puts your house on a map with a sun path around it. Turn the house outline until the highlighted front edge matches your front wall, and you can read the direction in degrees.

2. Use a compass

Stand with your back to the front door (or to the window you want to check) and look straight out. Hold a compass flat in front of you. The direction you are looking is the direction the wall faces.

Two things to watch:

• Magnetic north is not true north. The difference (the magnetic declination) is a few degrees in most of Europe, and more than ten degrees in parts of North America. Many phone compass apps can show true north.
• Metal and electronics disturb compasses. Step away from cars, radiators and steel doors.

3. Use the sun at solar noon

At solar noon the sun is exactly due south (in the Northern Hemisphere, outside the tropics). Look up the time of solar noon for your location, then at that time look at a vertical shadow: it points exactly north. Compare that line with your walls.

4. Use sunrise and sunset

Around the equinoxes (late March and late September) the sun rises almost exactly in the east and sets almost exactly in the west, all over the world. If the setting sun shines straight into a window on 22 September, that window faces west.

What each direction means (Northern Hemisphere)

• June solstice
• Equinox
• December solstice

• South: the most sun over the whole year, and the only direction that gets plenty of sun in winter. In summer the sun is high, so a small overhang or balcony above easily shades it.
• East: morning sun all year, shade from late morning on. Pleasant for bedrooms and breakfast rooms, cooler in summer afternoons.
• West: afternoon and evening sun. Great for evening light in the garden; in summer, the low western sun can overheat rooms because it shines almost straight onto west-facing windows, where an overhang cannot block it.
• North: almost no direct sun in winter, but steady, even daylight, ideal for studios and offices. In summer a north wall gets a little sun early in the morning and late in the evening.
• Diagonal directions combine the neighbours: south-east gets sun from sunrise to early afternoon, south-west from late morning to evening.

In the Southern Hemisphere everything is mirrored: north-facing walls get the most sun, south-facing ones the least.