In modern apartments, there are usually not so many rooms to choose their purpose depending on the direction of the world. But it is necessary to pay attention to where the windows of the apartment “look”: not only mood, but also health depends on this. AiF.ru tells you what you need to know about the cardinal points when choosing housing.

Lighting standards

Before building a new house, insolation (natural light) calculations for future apartments are always carried out. “The insolation coefficient is calculated taking into account the geographic latitude at which the house is located (the angle of incidence of direct sunlight at the zenith depends on it), the parameters of the apartment (latitude and design of light openings), the presence of shading objects (the distance between neighboring houses), etc.” , — told AiF.ru Director of FGC "Leader" Grigory Altukhov.

According to sanitary standards and rules (SanPiN), the standard duration of insolation should be ensured in living rooms. For Moscow, which is part of the central zone, it is at least two hours. The duration of insolation in residential buildings must be ensured in at least one room for 1-3-room apartments, and at least two rooms for multi-room apartments. “For each specific object, the restrictions on the location of apartments are different. But there is one thing in common - windows in apartments cannot be oriented only to the north, ”says Ekaterina Fonaryova, Commercial Director of Barkley Corporation.

The fact is that north side— the darkest and coldest. In rooms with windows facing north, special attention should be paid to the insulation of windows and walls, as well as artificial lighting, which should compensate for the small amount of sunlight.

The rest of the world also have their own characteristics. East side warms up well in summer and cools down a lot in winter. In the morning, the room is filled with light, and in the afternoon it is in the shade. South side lightest and warmest. The sun warms and illuminates the room well both in winter and in summer. West side the most windy and exposed to the sun. If possible, during the construction of houses on the western side, barrage tree plantings are made.

Sunlight and health

It is extremely difficult to overestimate the importance of natural light. Low insolation negatively affects vision, growth, and metabolism. In addition, the lack of sunlight is a powerful stress-forming factor - the lack of light can cause a decrease in mood and depression.

“Illumination is one of the main issues raised by buyers,” says Ekaterina Fonareva. - Someone prefers apartments with the morning sun, someone with the evening. However, dark apartments do not suit anyone.”

Photo: RIA Novosti / Ruslan Krivobok

Cardinal directions and purpose of premises

For kitchen, pantries and other utility rooms are best suited north, northwest or northeast side. They are not residential, which means that a large amount of natural light is not needed here. Also on the north side it is good to have non-residential, utility rooms.

Bedroom best located on the east or southeast side. This arrangement will allow you to wake up with the first rays of the sun.

Cabinet location(workshop) depends on what time of day it will be used. If you need to work in the morning, it is better to place it in a room on the east or southeast side: the morning rays will illuminate the room well, and the hot midday sun will shine from the west. If you are supposed to work in the evening, then it is better to locate the office in the west or southwest: evening sunlight is not as hot as daylight, but at the same time it will illuminate the workplace well.

How to determine the cardinal points

Even if there is no compass at hand, you can easily determine the cardinal directions in the apartment. The easiest time to do this is on a sunny day. At the latitude of central Russia, the sun is in the east at 7 am, in the south at 1 pm, and in the west at 7 pm.

If there is an Orthodox church near the house, then you can determine the cardinal directions by the location of its construction. The lowered end of the lower crossbar on the dome of the church always faces south, and the raised end always faces north. The altar is always located on the east side.

Ordinary clocks with arrows can also help to find out the cardinal directions. To do this, you need to position the clock horizontally and point the hour hand at the sun. After that, you need to divide the angle between this arrow and the number 1 if it is winter outside, and 2 if it is summer. The bisector will point south.

The illumination of an apartment is one of the most important parameters when choosing a property, which a person evaluates almost on a subconscious level. If you come to inspect the apartment during the day, and it is semi-dark, this is an occasion to think about how comfortable such housing will be. There are even special standards that clearly stipulate how much light living rooms should receive daily. It is also important which side the windows face. About how to choose an apartment where there will be enough light, experts of the MIC Group tell. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of sunlight in our life. Natural lighting is involved in the formation of our daily biorhythms and metabolism, is a catalyst for the synthesis of vitamins, stimulates mental activity and directly affects our mood. It will not work to replace natural light with lamps, therefore, for modern residential real estate, there are special lighting standards that differ depending on the latitude of the area. So, in the middle lane, continuous insolation of residential premises should be at least 2 hours in the period from March 22 to September 22. This period of illumination can be divided into several parts, but then at least one of them should be at least an hour, while the total duration of insolation should increase by half an hour. Such requirements are set out in SanPiN 2.2.1 / 2.1.1.1076-01 "Hygienic requirements for insolation and sun protection of residential and public buildings and territories." Of course, it is impossible to determine by eye at the first visit to the apartment whether it meets all these requirements. In addition, there are other documents, in particular, regulating the measure of illumination in the rooms, and it is simply impossible to take them all into account when inspecting an apartment. Therefore, it is best to rely on your own feelings and knowledge of some rules or enlist the support of a realtor. When buying primary real estate, the issue of apartment illumination is not so acute, but when choosing housing in an old housing stock, this moment should be taken as carefully as possible. It is very important to find out how the house is oriented relative to the cardinal points. It is desirable that the apartment does not face the north side with all windows, otherwise it will be very dark in it in winter and autumn. It will be a little lighter in a room whose windows face the northeast, here the sunlight will appear in the morning hours. Realtors call rooms facing east and southeast the most successful option: in winter there is enough light, and in summer this side of the house does not “bake” as much as, for example, in the west or southwest. Apartments with windows facing different sides are also very much appreciated: in brighter rooms you can arrange a living room or a nursery, in more shaded rooms - a bedroom or an office. “If you choose an apartment with a realtor, be sure to tell him about your preferences regarding the illumination of the apartment,” they say in the MITs-Nedvizhimost company (MITs Group). - Sunlight in the apartment, of course, is very important, but not everyone wants to live on the side, where it is light almost all day, someone will have enough sun only in the morning or evening hours. And someone, on the contrary, will choose windows to the hot southwest.

This year, summer spoils us simply royally: heat, occasional thunderstorms and little rain. By the sea, such weather would be ideal, but the city is melting from extreme temperatures. Let's figure out how to use simple ways turn the apartment into an oasis of coolness.

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Summer this year was a success, pah-pah not to jinx it. Heat up to +35, rare thunderstorms. In general, the weather is almost resort, seaside. Only now there is no sea in the central strip of Russia, and the cool breeze does not blow over our bodies, exhausted by the heat. The dusty, gassed city is melting from high temperatures, and we are suffocating in dust and soot. One salvation is to hide at home, under a roof and behind thick walls. Wow, and here, it turns out, a real bath. Whatever you touch, everything gives off heat. Do you really have to sit out in a cool bath? No way - let's go invent a home air conditioner.

We began to collect folk ways to save an apartment from the summer heat just at the time when unbearable heat came to Ryazan. To begin with, all the carpets were removed. Walking barefoot on a bare floor is more pleasant than walking on a wool pile - you immediately feel cool. Well, at the same time, they got rid of a pile of vases, figurines, lace napkins and other cute nonsense that warms the soul so much in the cold season and incredibly quickly overgrown with dust in the summer, when all the windows are wide open. How painful it is to wash-wash all this every week - it's time to take a break.

Method one. In deep siege

My apartment is on a sunny side. In winter, we have wind and cold, and in summer - unbearable closeness. You also don’t really want to hang curtains from the sun on the windows, otherwise it will completely block the access of air to the apartment. But to isolate ourselves from the sun is quite in our power. I borrowed this method from the mother of one of my girlfriends - every summer, with the onset of heat, she seals the windows with foil and feels great. We didn’t have a lot of food foil, but it was enough for one room. Glue does not take foil, so we used tape. It is very inconvenient to work with foil - it is thin, slides on glass and constantly breaks, especially when children pull it against each other. Due to inexperience, we made a huge mistake - we glued part of the foil onto the glass. Traces of adhesive tape, alas, are not erased by anything. It is better, of course, to mount it on the frame.

When we finished, polar night fell in the room. How good it was for the first half an hour, when the sun finally stopped mercilessly roasting me from all sides, hitting the monitor and heating all objects within a radius of three meters from the window. Immediately pulled into sleep. But then one wanted to read, the other decided to collect puzzles on the floor. I had to turn on the light. And it's at noon. No, I am still firmly convinced that the deficit of sunlight accumulated over the winter must be replenished at all costs. And if you also live with artificial lighting in the summer, the body simply cannot stand it.

Method two. Carlson himself

Overboard +34. It's time to invent a home air conditioner according to the instructions of Aunt Sveta from the second entrance. During a conversation on a bench, a neighbor said that she had been struggling with the heat in this way for the third year already.

To build this device, we used the most sophisticated super-technological equipment: an old fan and three or four plastic bottles. Neighbors helped with empty bottles. We filled all the bottles cold water and put in the freezer. The car is a beast! After 40 minutes, I have four 1.5-liter ice cubes in my hands. Strictly following the recommendations of Aunt Sveta, I put the fan in the corner of the room and direct it in the direction opposite to the window. In front of him on a stand - all four frozen bottles.

At night, Aunt Sveta's development had to be slightly improved. First, I turned the fan away from the bed - it smelled of ice so much that I began to miss the quilt. Secondly, she placed a large tray under the bottles - thawed water flowed from them to the floor.

The third method or Chyort pobieri!

Don't even think! my mother protested when the children and I pulled out an old thick hose from the bowels of the pantry.

Calm down, grandma! Now we will make one little experiment, and we will return everything as it was, - the eldest son said authoritatively, putting one end of the hose on the kitchen faucet.

I discovered this method on a women's forum and, frankly, I did not believe in its effectiveness. Well, since we decided to try everything, then there is nowhere to go.

The protagonist of the experiment is a long hose, many have such in the country. But it is better, of course, to purchase another one - do not let it take its course (sorry for the pun) watering suburban area? We coped with the task quickly - we connected one end to the cold water tap in the kitchen, and dragged the other end around the apartment and threw it into the bath. Knowledgeable forum visitors promised that the circulation of cold water would create a comfortable temperature. I will say right away: in the afternoon it is better to immediately refuse this method of cooling. First, by shutting off the water, you actually paralyze the work in the kitchen. Secondly, the hose lying on the floor makes it very difficult to walk. All the household members stumbled over him, and more than once. With the words "damn it!", "I saw your experiment ..." and other free variations on this theme, someone now and then stretched on the floor. I had to stop the experiment early.

For two hours of operation of the ingenious air conditioner, the air temperature in the rooms that lay in the path of the hose decreased by 3 degrees. What can not be said about the indicators of another, no less significant measuring device - the water meter has fulfilled its weekly norm.

Method four. I'll freeze everyone!

No tricky devices - just a regular flower sprayer and cold water. The sprayer was found on the windowsill among numerous flower pots - I didn’t even think that we had so many flowers. You collect water to the eyeballs and puff around the perimeter of the room.

It took no more than two minutes to spray one room. But then for about half an hour there is a water curtain in the air. It's +35 outside, and the apartment is pleasantly cool. The beauty!

Needless to say, that the opportunity to “legally” splash water was received by the children with a bang? Of course, they swore that they would only puff into the air ... But after five minutes, with joyful squeals, they began to shoot each other.

And only grandmother walked around with a gloomy look all day. Well, firstly, solving a crossword puzzle (as, indeed, watching TV, relaxing ...) on a couch that does not dry out is not very pleasant. Secondly, in fairness, it must be said that not only the sofa was wet, but also the wallpaper, the wardrobe, the glass doors in the sideboard and all the clothes carelessly forgotten on the surface. It is good that the carpet was rolled up at the very beginning of the experiment.

There are only two downsides to this method. First - the procedure must be repeated every 40 minutes, and this - if you are not a housewife - is almost impossible. And the second - on average, about four liters of water are spent per day per room (at the rate of half a liter per room, about eight times a day from 10 am to 7 pm). For owners of water meters, a tangible increase in utility bills.

Method five. Bath for a cat

I'll tell you a secret, I spied this method on our cat Timofey. When the air temperature in the apartment becomes incompatible with the comfortable existence of the cat, he moves to the bathroom. He sits under the sink or in the bath itself and blissfully. And if cold water also flows from the tap, Timka's happiness knows no bounds. Why are we worse than cats? Let me get a full bath of ice water, I decided. But after all, you won’t sit next to the bathroom all day - you opened the door so that the coolness would flow through the rooms, and went to the store.

Did I feel like I was in a heavenly oasis when I returned? No. Moisture filled the air except perhaps in the hallway, where, in fact, the bathroom door went out. The temperature dropped from 28 to 25. The freshness did not reach the living room - the nearest room. In the kitchen, as before, there is a steam room - direct sunlight and pudding in the oven.

And only one member of our family seemed to be really well. Timothy, like an Antarctic penguin, floundered in the icy water, making blissful sounds. Well, now let him just try to protest the next time it's time to wash.

Well, let's summarize: with a waste of water from 200 to 400 liters (depending on the volume of the bath), we get a chilled bathroom and, at best, a corridor. So if you don’t have a cat and you didn’t plan to move to the bathroom for the summer, it’s better to look for another way.

Method six. hello neighbors

Another way to save water is probably the most harmless for owners of water meters. My labor costs were minimal: I filled a large bucket to the brim with cold water and put it by the bed for the night. When we went to bed, it was +24 in the room, after three hours, when I got up it was already 21. But I would not attribute this to my homemade air conditioner - after all, the temperature outside also dropped. But how good it is - without getting out of bed, put your hands in a bucket, moisten your face and neck with cold water. In general, some pluses. If not for one minus. When I woke up in the morning, I completely forgot about the bucket of water and ... for the next thirty minutes I crawled almost 10 liters of water from the floor.

Method seven. Ghost: wild but cute

This is the only method out of all of the above that I have used before. Humidified the air in the bedroom when the asthmatic child had an aggravation. The preparatory work took only ten minutes - there was not enough room for two sheets in the room. I replaced one with a large terry towel. She soaked both the sheet and the towel in cold water. The main thing here is to squeeze things out well, otherwise turn the room into a pond. True, it was not possible to hang them up right away - the boys immediately snatched them up and began to play ghosts. Well, they cooled down at the same time.

During the day, in the heat of the day, wet sheets were of little use - the temperature in the room did not drop at all, and breathing became only a little easier. But at night, when the children suffered from stuffiness and could not fall asleep, damp linens hung next to the beds really helped. The boys passed out in just five minutes.

Instead of an afterword

Well, we honestly tried all the ways. And how to escape from the heat, decide for yourself. But in any case, do not forget about a few simple rules, which will help you keep cool in the apartment:

Ventilate the apartment, if possible, only during the day - in the morning and in the evening you risk letting in not only coolness, but also all the dirt from the street;

Do not dry clothes in the apartment or on the balcony;

Do not use a humidifier in hot weather.

And may the weather be good in your house!

TO THIS TOPIC

According to nutritionists, you can cool off with the help of spicy dishes. Spices such as hot chili peppers increase blood circulation - you sweat and lose heat. Other foods that improve circulation include onions and garlic, dark chocolate, citrus fruits, olive oil, nuts and seeds.

ON A NOTE

My house is my bath?

The comfortable temperature in the house largely depends on the building material. Most of all, the inhabitants of brick houses were lucky. The brick has a large thermal inertia, that is, it gains heat rather slowly. But concrete, on the contrary, has low heat resistance. It warms up quickly, but does not give back heat. Therefore, if you do not take measures to cool such a dwelling, get a home steam room.

In new monolithic houses in the summer it’s also hard, here comes to the aid of residents modern system home ventilation. True, she, too, can present an unpleasant surprise. For example, during extreme heat, it can start to pull in the opposite direction, that is, at 23 degrees in the apartment and 38 on the street, hot air will be drawn into the house. According to the laws of nature, air moves from an area of ​​high pressure to an area of ​​low pressure.

Well, it's no secret to anyone what affects the atmosphere in the apartment and its size and orientation of the windows. It will be much cooler in a spacious apartment with high ceilings and windows turned to the east than in a cramped one-room apartment with low ceilings and windows to the south.

If you buy an apartment, it may turn out to be a purchase for a lifetime, so you need to be extremely careful in choosing your future home. You need to be especially careful about which side the windows will face. Even if this is a one-room apartment, they can go out on two sides at once, but the windows of the living room are of the greatest importance.

Southern apartments

A dwelling with windows to the south is most often considered the most successful. Even the price of such apartments is usually higher than all the others. In addition to the fact that rooms with southern windows will be lit most of the day and you won't have to spend a lot of money on electricity to light them, sunlight also has a beneficial effect on the human body. Under the influence of the sun, serotonin is produced, and if the windows are open, then vitamin D.

However, before making a choice on which side to choose living, you need to remember that too much sun and constant light in the rooms can even be annoying. Wallpaper will fade from it, and watching TV will not be so convenient. Therefore, when purchasing an apartment with south-facing windows, take care of the shade curtains.

West and East

The most neutral options on which side it is better to buy an apartment are west and east. The choice of one side or the other depends on your tastes. If you do not like to get up early, it is better not to buy housing with east windows - the sun will shine in your eyes at dawn and interfere with sleep. For larks, such rooms can be an ideal option.
Apartments with windows to the west will give you the opportunity to enjoy the most beautiful sunsets. However, in the summer, the sun shines in them closer to the night, while being quite annoying. Therefore, if you have to go to bed early, it is better to neglect the beautiful sunsets and choose windows on the other side.

north side

Usually, apartments in which all windows face north are considered unsuccessful. However, if it is located above the 5th floor, and the windows overlook the forest, stadium, kindergarten or other space not occupied by high-rise buildings, then there will be no lack of light in such an apartment. But there will be no scorching sun, from which you will have to hide most of the year.

Living quarters with northern rooms are preferred by people who work from home. Especially - creative professions: photographers, artists, writers and programmers.

On which side to buy an apartment, only you decide. And specialists from the company can help you with the purchase realndv.ru. We offer you a huge number of housing options with windows on different sides of the world, so that you choose the option that suits you perfectly.

Image Source: Lori Photobank

A truly bright apartment is immediately a whole bunch of pluses. Firstly, such housing visually seems larger, and secondly, electricity bills are reduced. And in such a house, plants grow better, and mold almost never starts. The amount of sunlight in an apartment is an important issue, so when choosing housing in modern new buildings, you should pay attention to this factor.

Light "in the law"

At the stage of designing a house, the architect faces one rather important task: he needs to think over the building so that each apartment receives a sufficient amount of light. It can be very difficult to achieve this in the conditions of close development of modern cities, experts say. Nevertheless, developers have no choice - new housing must necessarily comply with insolation standards, otherwise the project will not receive a positive conclusion from the state examination. The requirements for insolation, fixed in SanPiNs, largely limit the implementation of a particular concept of a residential complex. “For example, one-room apartments and studios cannot face the north side. If we talk about multi-room apartments, then at least one of the rooms must be bright without fail, ”says Maria Litinetskaya, Managing Partner.

Thus, buying an apartment in a modern residential complex, you can not be afraid that you will come across housing with violations of insolation standards - this is now being monitored strictly. However, this only applies to housing. For apartments that are not legally residential, these SanPiN do not apply. That is, when designing apartments, the developer can arrange the building in such a way that the premises face the north side or a blank wall.

Indeed, apartment developers are free from stringent regulatory requirements for insolation, confirms Vyacheslav Kazunin, senior project manager, premium houses in the center of Moscow. This, in particular, makes it possible to design apartments with a smaller ratio of facade area to interior area, that is, to make them deeper. However, insolation is an important factor that has a beneficial effect on the human environment, so apartment builders sometimes take into account the standards, although they are not required to. “The standard duration of insolation (continuous direct sunlight for 2 hours) in residential buildings must be provided in at least one living room for 1-3-room apartments and at least two living rooms for 4-room and large apartments", - the expert clarifies.

With a view of the sunrise... Or the sunset?

According to experts, the brightest apartments overlook on the southwest side. “However, this does not mean at all that the majority of buyers choose just such objects,” he says. - As practice shows, about 80% of clients are interested in housing with windows to the east or west, while they are practically not interested in north and south. And this is quite logical. Someone likes to wake up with the sun, and someone likes to admire the sunset. With windows to the north, the sun's rays do not enter the apartment, and housing with windows to the south is illuminated during the day, when many people are at work. Nevertheless, among our clients there were also those who were looking for the northeast side. This happens for various reasons. For example, there are people who cannot stand the summer heat or are even allergic to the sun. In addition, in an apartment on the sunny side, repairs have to be done more often due to fading wallpaper. Therefore, there is no single advice on choosing the side of the world in an apartment. It all depends solely on the personal desires and needs of the client.

Which rooms do not "steal" the light

And yet it is worth noting that insolation and illumination are different concepts, says Vyacheslav Kazunin ("MONE Residence"). Insolation refers directly to direct sunlight and depends on the orientation of the apartment, while the requirements for illumination refer specifically to the proportions of rooms and window sizes. Thus, a number of other factors affect how bright your apartment will be.

First of all, we are talking about the floor. The lower the apartment, the less light it gets. The shape of the rooms is also important, experts say: the most illuminated are the square ones, while the “pencil cases” are most often dark, especially if they have a balcony or loggia in addition to everything. And, of course, the number of windows has a big impact. “For example, two-room apartments are sold in the Fili Grad multifunctional complex, where there are three windows in the room at once. This not only increases the illumination, but also allows you to put a partition and divide the space, - says Maria Litinetskaya ("Metrium Group")».

Often, developers increase the illumination of apartments in their complexes with the help of solutions such as panoramic windows. Bay windows also help to make housing brighter - parts of the room that protrude beyond the plane of the facade.

"Vest" is the best

Good illumination of the apartment is a big plus, but this characteristic, oddly enough, does not have a direct connection with the price tag. “If you compare apartments in which most of the windows face the bright side and housing with windows to the north, the prices in them may differ,” says Maria Litinetskaya. - For example, in the Fili Grad residential complex, the difference in cost between apartments of the same area on the first and upper floors can reach 600 thousand rubles. However, it is important to understand that such a price premium is affected not only by the level of insolation, but also, first of all, by the species characteristics. Therefore, it is quite difficult to single out the share of the level of illumination directly.

In the case of apartments, the situation is similar. According to Vyacheslav Kazunin, senior project manager, lighting and window directions are not key factors in their pricing. But the cost of an apartment rises, provided that it faces two or more cardinal points. “Housing on three or even four cardinal directions is the most prestigious, but it is worth noting that such lots often have a large area, which is also one of the key factors in pricing,” the expert says.

However, all of the above applies only to housing in which windows face east and west, clarifies Maria Litinetskaya. Apartments with windows to the south and north at the same time are not so liquid. "Undershirts" allow owners to correctly zone the space. For example, the children's room and the living room in this case can be located at different ends of the apartment, which is very convenient. None of the family members will be disturbed by a working TV or playing children.

Light requirements prevent the appearance of "stone jungle"

From time to time, the authorities raise the issue of revising the existing requirements for the illumination of residential premises. The last such discussion was in February 2015, when the Moscow Government planned to revise the allowable illumination standards for residential projects as part of the anti-crisis plan in order to reduce the restriction when planning the building area. On the one hand, this will greatly facilitate the work of the developer, says Maria Litinetskaya ("Metrium Group"), since construction sites are often surrounded by something or have irregular geometry, which greatly limits the apartment layout. However, this will certainly lead to an even greater increase in building density, which will make life less comfortable.

In the meantime, the requirements for lighting remain the same, the buyer of primary real estate has a fairly good selection of bright and comfortable apartments. The main thing is to choose housing taking into account your lifestyle (this includes, first of all, the work schedule), well-being and aesthetic preferences. Portal wishes you good luck in choosing a new apartment!