In selecting a home site, there are a number of very important things
to be considered. When once you settle the point of convenient
accessibility to your work or place of business, you doubtless think
first of the neighborhood in which you and your family are going to
live, the kind of people about you, the church, school, and library
privileges, and such like questions.
Then you will consider the physical character of the place, its slopes
and levels, its trees, its gardens, its outlook, or, in a word, its
attractiveness from an aesthetic point of view; to which are closely
related the practical questions of pure water supply, good drainage,
and shelter from the extremes of weather. No matter how attractive
otherwise a locality might be, you would not consider it for a moment
unless the conditions of sanitation and healthfulness were fully met;
and you would want some natural protection from the severe storms of
winter as well as from the blazing heat of summer. In the winter you
would want as little breeze and as much sun, and in the summer as
little sun and as much breeze as possible.
Finally, in selecting your site, it would be well to have in mind the
house you intend to build and the way you want it to face. If possible,
get your house plan first and select your lot accordingly. Or, at any
rate, picture it all out in your mind to guide you in selecting your
location. By a little planning and forethought you may not only secure
the outlook you want but the exposures to sun or breeze most desired.
You cannot change climatic conditions or topography, but, to an
appreciable extent, you can adjust the location of your house to them.
The Orientation Chart, here given, shows the points of sunrise and
sunset, on the horizon, midsummer and midwinter, as well as the
direction of the sunlight each successive hour of the midsummer and
midwinter day. The chart will thus aid you, so far as conditions
permit, in facing your house so as to get the sun or shade where you
want it.
[Illustration: _Orientation Chart_
© 1922. Eben Rodgers, President, A. F. B. A.
_Issued by_ American Face Brick Association
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