Bungalow North-Facing Garden

sadie06

We have just found a home that ticks so many of our boxes in terms of its location and layout. It is as near to perfect for our needs and budget as we are going to get, however, it has a North facing garden.

My husband is into growing veg and gardening. The garden is not long, but am I right in thinking that a bungalow should not cast a very long shadow and we should have at least some sunlight in the garden at all times during high summer?

Of more concern is the 'feel' at the back of the house. The owners have compensated with a large skylight in the kitchen and the family room off it has windows on three sides. There are, however, two smallish bedrooms at the back of the house which would be for our children. Will they be permanently cold and dark?

I used the rather cool suncalc website recommended on another thread on this topic, but I am not good at visualising possible dreariness, particularly coming off the back of living with a South facing garden for the last 8 years.

Supercell

My front garden faces NE but is much longer than my back, so that's where I grow all my veggies. The house is a bungalow so sun shadow inst really a problem except for the front two or three metres. Put the sun loving veggies like tomatoes, cucumbers, beans etc furthest away from the house and the leafy greens - cabbage, pak choi etc closest and you wont go far wrong.

sadie06

Thank you for the helpful replies.

PhoenixParker

It's easy enough to calculate accurately using various online solar calculators or a free program called "sketch up". It takes a little patience to get the details right but it's worth doing for such a big purchase.

Alternatively, this is a pretty good time of year to judge a garden. How is the sun there at various times of day now? You'll have four months at least as good as it is now.

sadie06

I'll look into Sketch up for sure! Thank you.

Was looking at velux sun tunnels last night as an option to get some natural day-light into the gloomier rooms.

L1011

sadie06 wrote: »

Was looking at velux sun tunnels last night as an option to get some natural day-light into the gloomier rooms.

I don't know if the newer ones have improved in this regard but I've had the horrors of occasionally working in an internal room with one of these and its the nastiest sickliest light possible unless its basically burning sunshine outside. This would have been one slightly bent with reflection providing the light rather than just a tube up to a dome though.

Hombre Lobo

Hey OP, you can use suncalc [dot] net website (can't post links) to get a rough estimate of where the sun would be in your back garden at whatever date and time of the year.
Edit: oops sorry, just saw you already tried with this. my bad.

It's not going to show you how well the sun comes over the roof but it might give you a better picture. It all depends on what surrounds the house too. Is there a two story house to the west that's going to block light coming in from the afternoon to late evening? Are there trees around the property?

You could also zoom in on the property with google maps or bing / yahoo maps. Try the two because they offer different satellite images. Select the satellite terrain and if it's a clear day it might show you any shadows being cast by the sun.