Which Way Does My House Face? Compass & Map Guide

To find which way your house faces, stand at the front door facing outwards and read your phone’s compass. North is 0°, east is 90°, south is 180° and west is 270°. For a room’s sunlight, measure the direction its main windows look out instead.

The illustration above shows the distinction: its arrow points out of the front door towards south (180°). It describes that doorway, not every window in the house. A north-facing entrance can belong to a home with a south-facing living room.

Choose how to find your house’s direction

• I’m at the property — use your phone’s compass at the door or window.
• I only have the address — open your property on the map, or follow the satellite-map instructions.
• I already know the direction — use the map above and select Explore sunlight.

At the property: use your phone’s compass

1. Choose the face you mean. Use the front door for the home’s entrance direction, or the main window for the room you want to assess.
2. Face outwards. Hold the phone flat, with its top edge pointing straight out through the doorway or window. Do not point along the wall.
3. Read the bearing. A reading near 90° means east; 180° means south. Intermediate bearings describe directions such as south-east (135°).
4. Check for interference. Move away from metal frames, magnetic accessories and appliances if the reading is unstable. Repeat the measurement from another safe position facing the same way.
5. Record the room and direction together. “Living-room window: south-east” is more useful than simply “south-east house”.

Phone compasses can use magnetic or true north. Use true north when available to compare with the solar bearings in our calculator. Apple’s iPhone compass guidance explains how to hold the phone and warns that magnetic or environmental interference can affect accuracy.

Only have the address? Use a satellite map

1. Search for the address in your preferred map service and switch to satellite imagery.
2. Reset the map to north-up. Check its compass rather than assuming the map has not been rotated. With north up, east is right, south is down and west is left.
3. Identify the correct façade. Use listing photographs or a floor plan to locate the front door or the room’s windows. The road alone does not tell you which way a particular room faces.
4. Imagine an arrow pointing straight out from that wall. An arrow towards the right of a north-up map points east. An arrow towards the lower-left points south-west.
5. Treat unclear outlines as uncertain. An obscured roof, shared entrance or angled façade can make a satellite estimate ambiguous. Confirm with a compass at the viewing.

A building’s facing direction and the sun’s direction are different measurements. Your window keeps the same orientation; the sun’s bearing changes with location, date and time. The next step is to compare the two.

Check the sun’s direction at your address

Use the address shortcut above to find your property, switch to Explore sunlight and compare a morning and afternoon time. Then compare June and December. The calculator uses the selected location’s time zone, so the time refers to the property rather than your own device’s location.

You can also use the sun calculator and direction map. It shows the sun’s compass bearing and height above the horizon. It does not automatically identify your window direction, calculate indoor brightness or determine whether a neighbouring building blocks the sun.

How to interpret the result

Compare the sun bearing with the outward direction of your window. Sun on that side of the building makes direct light possible. It still has to clear nearby buildings, trees, overhangs and the edges of the window opening.

For homes outside the tropics, these are useful starting points:

Window direction	What to investigate
East	Morning sunlight, including whether nearby buildings block the early sun.
West	Afternoon and evening sunlight, plus glare and unwanted heat.
South	In the Northern Hemisphere, access to winter sun; check the height of obstructions opposite.
North	In the Northern Hemisphere, indirect daylight and the room’s view of open sky.

Reverse the north/south guidance in the Southern Hemisphere. East still corresponds broadly to morning and west to afternoon; exact sunlight hours depend on season, latitude and obstructions. The US Department of Energy’s daylighting explanation discusses north-facing daylight and the heat and glare challenges of east- and west-facing windows.

For a fuller comparison, see north-facing versus south-facing homes. That guide helps you interpret an aspect once you have measured it.

Three examples to try at a viewing

The sun figures in these examples are for Toronto (43.65° N, 79.38° W), in local time, calculated with SunCast’s sun calculator. They assume nothing blocks the view, so treat them as the most a window could get.

An east-facing bedroom

You measure about 90° looking out of the bedroom window. On 21 June the Toronto sun rises at 05:37 at a bearing of 56°, already north of east, and stays on the window’s side of the house until about 13:20. On 21 December it rises at 07:49 at 123°, south of east, and has moved round to the south side by about 12:15. Run the calculator for the time you normally wake up on both dates. A building opposite may still delay the first direct light.

At the viewing, check the height of that building, the window opening and the curtains. A bright morning bedroom may suit an early riser; someone working nights may value effective blackout blinds more.

A west-facing balcony

The balcony opens roughly towards 270°. In Toronto on 21 June the sun is on the west side from about 13:20 and sets at 21:03 on a bearing of 304°, so there are several hours of evening sun after work. On 21 December it sets at 16:44 on a bearing of 238°, well before most people get home. Check your own after-work time on a summer and a winter date.

Look for side walls, the balcony above and nearby trees. They can shade the space even when its west-facing label suggests evening light. Our balcony sun-exposure guide takes that assessment further.

A south-facing room behind another building

For a Northern Hemisphere property outside the tropics, a south-facing window is a useful starting point for investigating winter sun. In Toronto the sun reaches only 22.9° above the horizon at 12:16 on 21 December. If the roofline opposite sits higher than that, seen from the window, the room gets no direct sun over it on the shortest day, even though the bearing lines up.

The web calculator tells you where the sun is, and an in-person check tells you what is in the way.

What to record before buying or renting

• The outward direction of the main window in each important room.
• The hours you expect to use that room.
• A morning and afternoon comparison, with dates from contrasting seasons.
• Nearby buildings, trees, overhangs and balcony walls that could block light.
• Anything you could not confirm from the map or viewing.

Keep those observations alongside the apartment sunlight checklist. SunCast for home hunting covers the rest of the house-hunting process.