South-facing house: which side, and what it means

A south-facing house usually means the front of the house faces south, so the back and the garden face north. Estate agents often mean the opposite, because "south-facing" in a UK listing nearly always describes the garden. Check which side they mean before you get excited.

Gwendwr Road, West Kensington, at midday on 21 December. Free, no sign-up.

Front or back: the confusion

People use "facing" in two ways. Surveyors, architects and most maps describe a house by the direction its front elevation faces: stand at the front door, look out, and that's the direction. Property listings in the UK mostly describe the garden, because a sunny garden sells.

So a "south-facing house" and a "house with a south-facing garden" are close to opposites. The first has a sunny front and a north-facing garden. The second has a north-facing front and a sunny garden. On a street that runs east to west, houses on one side get one arrangement and the houses opposite get the other.

If a listing just says "south-facing", ask the agent which side, or check it yourself. Our guide on which way your house faces covers the compass and map methods.

How much sun a south-facing wall gets

In the UK, a wall that faces due south is in front of the sun for most of the day, all year. These figures are for London, ignoring anything that might block the sun (neighbours, trees, hills), and were worked out with the same formulas the sun path map uses.

That's the key point for a south-facing front. Between the September and March equinoxes the sun never gets round to the north side of the house at all. All the direct winter sun lands on the south side, and in a south-facing-front house that is the front rooms, the front garden and the street.

What it means season by season

Winter. The sun is low, only 15° above the horizon at noon in London on the shortest day. Low sun reaches deep into south-facing rooms, which is good for light and free warmth, and it also means glare on screens and in your eyes. At that angle a three-storey terrace about 10 m tall throws a shadow roughly 37 m long, so a south-facing front on a narrow street can sit in the shadow of the houses opposite even at noon.

Spring and autumn. Around the equinoxes the sun rises close to due east and sets close to due west, so the south side gets sun from morning to evening.

Summer. The midday sun is high, about 62° in London, so it doesn't reach far into south-facing rooms. A modest overhang or awning shades it well. The sun rises in the north-east and sets in the north-west in June, so the north side picks up early-morning and evening sun. A north-facing garden behind a south-facing house often gets its best light on summer evenings, but little or none from October to February.

In the southern hemisphere it flips

South of the equator the sun is in the northern half of the sky, so north-facing is the sunny side. In Sydney on 21 June (midwinter there) a north-facing wall gets sun for the whole day and a south-facing wall gets none. Australian listings that boast of a "north-facing" aspect mean the same thing a UK agent means by "south-facing".

Check a real house before you commit

1. Search the address in Sundial.
2. Set the date to 21 December and drag the time through the day. Watch whether the front, the back or neither gets sun once the neighbours' shadows are included.
3. Repeat for 21 June, then switch to Sun hours to see total hours of direct sun on the garden and the ground around the house.

The street in the button above runs almost exactly east to west. At noon in December the house fronts on the north side of the road face south and catch the sun, while those on the south side face north and sit in shadow.