Tell me about your south-facing house

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We’re about to exchange on a lovely house that faces full south. Lots of windows on that side and also a loft conversion with a south facing roof and velux.

Is it going to be stupidly hot in the summer? We have been living in a damp north-east facing cottage and I’ve been so excited about the southerly aspect that I am only just realising there may be downsides.

That's the thing, they are many ways you can limit sun at the hottest time of the year, but no way to replicate it if you don't get any, which makes for a lot of miserable months in the UK at least!

On hot days it’s 35-38 normally in summer here. Max indoor is usually 26-27 on those days

We had those temps for a few weeks last year. It actually hit 40. It was mayhem here, forest and field fires started breaking out all around me, it was really scary. We've since had a ridiculously wet winter and spring and it's all been forgotten about!

I had a south facing flat and it was the best thing ever. Very very rarely too hot, often lovely and toasty warm with glorious sunshine

The front of our house is south facing (London). We adopt a more southern European approach in summer so we have black out blinds in the loft, we keep the curtains shut in the front in summer. The lovely thing is in extreme heat like last year the back of our house was extremely lovely and cool.

I think we need a diagram OP 😁

If you are in the south east a south facing garden will be very hot in the summer, as will the back of the house. My kitchen/diner, back bedroom and loft conversion are all very hot in summer and I never sit in the garden on hot days. On the other hand, a sunny day at this time of year is very pleasant.

I dont know where you all live that your south facing rooms make your houses unbearable for so much of the year! In extremis I have a fan for the loft room. Horses for courses I suppose.

I grew up in a house that faced due south to the rear and i had the back bedroom. It used to get hot but nothing too unbearable. My mother has a habit of keeping all the internal doors closed which means the front is cold and the back is boiling and drives me mad, whereas I'd have them open to even out the temperature! We also kept the blinds down in the back room all day to stop the sun bleaching the furniture.....which wasn't really an issue as we didn't use it during the day but could impact use if you wanted it as a family room or were at home during the day more.

A long north facing rear garden will get sun at the bottom if it is not shadowed.

I have a house which faces the SE to the rear. In the morning the garden gets a lot of sun and the house warms up quickly at the back. At the front it stays relatively cool, even when the sun moves round.

In my personal opinion anywhere from E to S to W facing rear house is fine.

Anywhere North, NW and NE I would have issues with unless the garden is long, especially if a small garden because it will just be in shadow all the time and will be hard to grow grass in.

I have a south west facing home (garden).
Pro - Low electricity bill, bright and sunny kitchen and family room, lots of natural light during the day.
Con - Gets extremely hot during summer, had to purchase awning and now considering getting an air conditioner. Inside room temperature reaches 30 degrees during the summer with alarming frequency and fan and air cooler don't make any difference.

Our family room/kitchen faces south. We have a canopy we can unroll when the weather is warm, that shades the room. If there’s sun in the colder months, it warms the room and with the canopy rolled out, it’s shaded in warmer months.

I love that the room we spend most time in can get to 22 degrees without any heating on in the winter.

We have a south facing house. Love it. We have a big light airy extension. We have an attic bedroom last year we did have aircon put in which wasn't as expensive as we thought. It's great

Moving out of south facing with bifold doors its like living in an oven in the summer. Moving into a north facing bungalow which is the perfect hack! Low enough roof that the garden is still full sun but not streaming into the windows baking us alive

The front of our house faces south which means the lounge & master bedroom are flooded with light.
Positives:
You don't need any heating or lighting on in those rooms when the sun is out & you can decorate with pretty much any colour without worrying it will make the room dark.
Negatives:
Anything growing in the front garden bakes unless it's a Mediterranean plant such as lavender or rosemary! The back rooms can be cool and dark in winter. We're lucky with our back garden as it's fairly long so the bottom 2/3rds still get sun. our previous north facing garden felt quite cold and damp all year round.

We have a south facing house with a loft conversion and it's absolutely fine. Velux open in the summer evenings gives a nice breeze along with a fan during a heatwave haha. We have bifolds but have a parasol on wheels we just bring in front if it's too hot and sunny (only for a few months of the year). Garden always looks good, no moss and flowers in abundance.

I have a south facing Victorian conservatory that gets very hot to the rear of my living room. But the room runs through to the north facing front so I if I open windows at both ends it does get a good through breeze. Plus I also have a very powerful vintage style fan (it's not old but looks cool) and it cools the room very rapidly if I've been out all day. But I do need to water my plants frequently!

South facing house with lots of glass in a v sunny location here. It gets hottest in April and October when the sun is more consistently lower on the horizon & therefore shining through the windows for longer. In midsummer the sun beats down but not through the windows, so weirdly not as hot. It can get extremely hot at times to be honest (we have zero shade) but if you buy solar reflecting blinds or curtains and keep them drawn when not using the rooms it will help.Obviously you can let heat escape when the sun has gone down - unless we get another heatwave, but everyone's home is unbearable then!

It’s not going to be awful at all! You are going to love it.

Ours is super cool. In the last heatwave it didn’t get above 26 in the main house (outdoors was nearly 40!). But I think that’s more down to the construction than the sun facing.

I used to say I would never buy a house without a south facing garden... now I don't think I would ever buy one again. Far too hot from about May to September here. Even though I live in the north it's like a greenhouse with the windows! Almost every room in house is affected

Love it. Main thing is if it has decent insulation you can keep it cool. We turn ours int ok a cave in the heatwave and all slept with no problems. Blinds and curtains on every window a must but game changer for us was a large sail shading back of house. Also a MUST for any velux window is the external sun shade ( not just internal blackout solar blind)! This makes a huge difference to the temperature in the room. They use them everywhere on the continent and they are vital. Ours was less than £100 a while back. I would say good luck and enjoy just keep house shitbup in a heat wave 😁.

I have a south facing back garden and I can't use it between 12 & 5pm in the summer. There isn't any shade until late afternoon but in the evening it's glorious. I keep all the curtains at the back of the house shut during the day.

My house doesn't cost much to heat even in the winter as even a little bit of sunshine warms everything up. However, my north facing front is cooler and freezing in the winter.

I've lived in a north facing house before and wouldn't do so again. We had continuous damp issues and it cost a fortune to heat. So my next house will hopefully be another south or south west facing one.

No you usually refer to the garden as either south or north facing, never the front.
I've no idea why people are bringing the front into it.
I'm south facing garden
I wouldn't ever even look at a house with a north facing garden.

I have a south west facing garden on a visitor terrace, so it has windows facing both ways.

With careful management I was able to keep the house temperature to generally below 26 and even in the 40 degree phase below 30.

That involved setting the parasol up to shade the back door (ineffectively), all curtains closed all day, and opening curtains and windows for a couple of hours in the evening/morning. Sadly I live in a very urban area so road noise/streetlights/the likelihood of being burgled means it's not possible to leave the windows open all night.

If I were making any changes to the house I would certainly be thinking about heat management when I made them.

e.g. I have obtained a big gazebo which I'll be setting up next summer to shade the kitchen window and door. If I were replacing windows I'd be getting ones that open inwards so I could fit shutters outside them. I'm still considering if I could fit some kind of awning above the upstairs window as a temporary measure.

So I think you'll be able to manage it, and the sunshine in the winter is lovely. I love my South facing garden and I don't know if it's the directionality of the house but my heating bills are very reasonable. For me the garden makes up for any of the work.

But I do think we are feeling the impact of climate change now and it's worth thinking about what houses in Mediterranean countries do to passively reduce the impact of heat.

Whacking in air conditioning is certainly one option but given where we are environmentally it wouldn't be my first choice, or frankly given electricity prices economically either (especially not without first putting in the measures that other European countries would have as standard on their houses to make running Aircon more efficient).

Visitor = Victorian