The importance of orientation
When you are designing your renovation, it is good to consider the orientation of key rooms. This may seem trivial but it can make a big difference to the way you use them, heat, light etc. A badly positioned living room or bedroom can cost a fortune to keep cool, and a room that is dark and dingy is not going to be pleasant during the day.
1. Make the most of natural breezes.
The wind in Brisbane is very predictable. The vast majority of the time our “pleasant” cool breezes sweep in about 1pm from the north east. Our nasty storms and cold winds tend to come from the south west (although we do get some tricky storms from other directions). So there's good reason why estate agent blurb makes a virtue of a property having "north east aspect" - facing your deck so it is open to the north east will mean you have cool breezes wafting across it.
2. Use classic Queensland design.
Queenslander houses have doors and windows everywhere. They usually don’t exactly align with each other either. This is so that those lovely breezes have to snake their way through your home, keeping it cool. Hot air rises, so heat drifts up to the classical 3m ceilings keeping the lower areas cooler. If you design your house to have lots of places where heat can escape and breezes can flow, the temperature will remain far more ambient.
3. Make the most of your north face.
The sun’s position in the sky varies dramatically between winter and summer here. In winter it rise in the north east, hover only just above the northern horizon and set in the north west. In summer it will rise in the south east, travel up over the very top of your house, and set in the south west. So it helps if you can orientate your main living rooms to the north, and have plenty of big windows on this face. This will enable the winter sun to flood in to your house and warm it up. In summer the sun will not shine in to these windows.
Minimise any windows or doors to the east and west if you can, as these will let sun in to your house in the morning and afternoon in summer - and once it's in, your only option is to cool your house down.
4. Protect your western front
The western facing side of your house will get hammered by cold winter winds and fierce summer sun. If you can, try to put the rooms you use and care about least on your western front – bathrooms, laundries etc. Also, if you have the room, plant a shade tree to the west (one that will tolerate the heat) so it can cast cool shade on you through summer. We have a Jacaranda, which although being a bigger tree than I would normally recommend for a city garden, makes our west facing veranda lovely and cool even on summer afternoons.
5. Verandas
Verandas are important for keeping out the sun, and therefore the heat. They also offer pleasant places to sit when the sun is not on them. Try to plan for 2- 3m deep verandas on the east and west sides of your house. You can sit on the eastern veranda on winter mornings (when you want to warm up) and on summer afternoons (when you want to be cool). Minimise verandas to the north as these will stop the winter sun from getting in to your house and warming it naturally.
The rule of thumb on verandas to the north are to make them half of the height of the doors/ windows they shade.
