Why west is best

Giving careful consideration to the way you position your home on a particular block can extend your living and entertaining options, by maximising the amount of sunlight you can enjoy each day.

It's great to come home from work on a spring evening in Melbourne and still have enough sunshine to sit down for a relaxing dinner on the deck with your family, before the chill of night sets in.

Real estate agents and home magazines often espouse the virtues of a property's north-facing rear orientation, and certainly north is good. But when it comes to maximising the amount of daylight reaching your home each day, there's one rear orientation that tops the lot: west.

If the rear of a block faces west, a clever building designer will usually orient the main living areas (including external decks and entertaining areas) to the north-west - bathing the home with more sunshine each day than any other aspect.

This approach means you can position bedrooms on the northern and eastern sides, to capture the delightful morning sun.

If you're concerned about heat in summer, consider the fact that you can always turn on the air-conditioning, or even use some form of external shading on the dozen or so oppressively hot days we get in Melbourne each year. and enjoy your beautiful light-filled home for the other 353 days!