joanne40

Hi
We currently have a west facing garden and it was unbearably hot last summer. We couldn't eat out hardly at all and up till about 5pm you couldnt even really go out there. Also the house was so hot and even opening all the doors and windows as soon as we got up didn;t cool the house down. It was gorgeous however come the autumn when we could still sit out in the afternoon. We are just about to move and this house has a east facing garden so not sure how that is going to work as we love the sun!!

gryphea

OK, Still slightly confused. It does appear that most feel south facing yard is too hot, coupled with likely north facing driveway. It seems west facing can be too hot. Does no-one have those awningey things for the summer? Our houses currently has a south facing driveway and north facing yard and the sun does stream in the windows facing the front, and it would be such a shame to have to block off the windows in the summer. So it looks like maybe south-east or east-south-east may be a good option. I guess it also depaends on the proximity of other houses and length of garden. I think a deck area at the edn would be nice, and so it depends how high the sun is etc

Keep the answeres coming- its very interesting!
Gryphea

Biiiiink

Our back garden is West facing, we have big windows at the back and 2 sets of patio doors - the previous owner found it so hot they installed those plantation shutter thingies, at least I think that's what they're called... big pvc slatted shutters like these that fold back. Using those last summer meant we rarely turned the air conditioning on at all. Okay, you don't see the garden for 4mths but hey The sun leaves our patio at around 7:30pm-ish in summer, the neighbour has tall willow trees that block it after that.

We will get an awning at some point, it really was too hot to sit out otherwise.

The front is fine to shovel in the winter.

Pretty Flowers

I have a west facing back yard that gets unbearably hot in Summer. I had birthday party in August where I put candles out at night for some extra light. They didn't end up getting used, and by the time I'd got up to salvage them they'd melted.

Overall I love my house, but I'd prefer that the front was west and the back faced east. Downstairs is pitch black throughout the Winter, and I'm sure it would definately benefit from later day sun...

Steve_P

Could you not leave the windows open all night?

joanne40

We did but that didn't make any difference as there didn't seem to be any breeze during the hottest 6 weeks