Which way does my house face?

Stand on your front doorstep with your back to the door, look straight out, and read your phone's compass. That bearing is the direction the front of your house faces, and the back faces the opposite way.

Ladybarn Lane, Fallowfield, Manchester, at solar noon on the March equinox. Free, no sign-up.

Front or garden: what people mean

When surveyors, architects and planners say a house faces a direction, they mean the front elevation, the side with the main entrance. Estate agents in the UK usually describe the garden instead, because that's what buyers ask about. "South-facing garden" means the back faces south, which makes the front north-facing.

If a listing just says "south-facing" or "west-facing" with no noun after it, ask which side they mean. On a terrace the two answers are opposites. The guides to south-facing and north-facing houses explain what each means for sun.

Method 1: your phone's compass

1. Open your phone's compass app. If there isn't one, any free compass app that shows a bearing in degrees will do.
2. Stand outside the front door with your back to it and hold the phone flat in front of you, pointing straight out from the house.
3. Read the bearing. 180° means the front faces south, 90° east, 270° west, 0° north.
4. To get the back, add or subtract 180°. Or go and repeat from the back door.

Phone compasses are easily thrown off by metal. Step a few metres away from cars, railings and steel door frames, and calibrate the compass if the app asks you to. Take two or three readings and use the middle one.

Method 2: an online map

Open any map with north at the top, find your house and look at which side the street is on. If the road is above the house on the screen, the front faces north. If it's below, south. For a more exact answer, switch to satellite view and look at which way the roof ridge and the front wall run; the house faces at right angles to the front wall.

This works for houses you haven't visited yet, which makes it handy for checking listings.

Method 3: the sun

At solar noon the sun is due south in the UK and every shadow points due north. Stand by the front of the house at that time. If the front wall is fully lit and its shadow falls behind the house, the front faces roughly south. If the front is in its own shadow, it faces roughly north. If the sunlight skims along the wall, the front faces east or west, and an hour or two later will tell you which.

Solar noon isn't 12:00 on the clock. It shifts with daylight saving time and with how far west you are:

In the southern hemisphere it's the other way round: at solar noon the sun is due north and shadows point south.

Using Sundial to check, and to see what it means

Sundial is a free sun path map that draws the buildings around any address in 3D, with a compass and the sun's path for the chosen day.

1. Search your address. The compass in the scene shows north, and the sun's arc for that day runs across the southern sky (northern sky south of the equator).
2. Drag the time until the sun shines straight onto the front of your house, so the house's shadow falls directly behind it. The sun bearing shown at that moment is the direction your front faces. In the UK the sun never gets round to a wall facing due north, so if you can't line it up, read the direction off the compass in the scene instead.
3. Now use the answer. Set 21 December and 21 June, drag through each day and see which rooms and which part of the garden actually get sun once the neighbours are included. Sun hours colours the ground by total hours of direct sun.

Naming the direction

Most listings round to the nearest of eight compass points. A house whose front reads 200° on the compass would usually be called south-facing, or "south-south-west" by someone being precise.