I’d love to be able to build a custom home one day.
It’s one of those life-long ambitions.
And one of the things that can really make or break a home is how much natural light it gets depending on the time of day and season.
Some people like dark, forested homes.
Some people like bright sun scorching everything in its path.
Some like a mix.
It’s really a very personal consideration - it’s a “feel”, more than anything one can calculate precisely or quantify.
But, being a quantitative/analytical guy, I’ve always struggled when considering a site for a custom home, because I feel a need to know exactly how the light will hit it throughout different seasons and times of the day.
I’ve used various CAD-based programs for trying to analyze this before, but unless you feed in a huge amount of topographic data, you usually just get a very localized analysis that doesn’t really account for distant mountains or rolling hills that might block the light.
So, when I came across a site recently that is super simple, and allows a user to vary the season and time of day to analyze the sun path and resulting shadows, I got pretty excited.
I got so excited, that I decided to type up this post in case anyone else out there has ever wanted to analyze this kind of thing to the degree of excruciating detail as I have.
For anyone who fits that bill, or is just curious, check out:
Enjoy!