Climate At Your Site

Finding out about the climate at your site is an important part of your site analysis.

You may already live in the area that you are looking to build so you may already know the climate very well, but if you live at a distance from your site you might have a few questions about the climate.

Whichever situation you’re in it can be helpful to have factual information relevant to design and construction to help make decisions.

You can use information about the climate to make design decisions about:

Roof shape
Window placement
Wall thickness
Construction methods
Insulation materials
Organizing your outdoor spaces
Working out if solar panels are worthwhile
What climate control you'll need – heating, cooling, humidity control, air filters

Finding out a bit more about the climate can help you…

Compare two different locations together if you're considering where to live.
Determine when you’ll need to heat and cool your home.
Determine whether or not it’s worth getting solar panels.
Find out whether or not it’s worth putting in a swimming pool.

Temperature & Humidity

The temperature and humidity of your home affects how comfortable you'll feel day to day. Designing with temperature variations in mind ensures that your home will remain pleasant to hang out in year-round.

So you'll need to find out what temperatures and humidity levels to expect throughout the year.

High humidity levels can make the air feel sticky and uncomfortable, while low humidity can cause dryness, leading to health issues like dry skin or respiratory problems.

Excessive humidity creates a breeding ground for mold, which can harm both the structure of your home and isn't good for your health. Good design includes proper drainage, ventilation, moisture barriers and de-humidification strategies.

Temperature extremes and humidity levels affect building materials. For example, wood can warp or rot in high humidity, while metals may corrode.

Knowing the temperature and humidity levels helps in designing effective heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. This ensures your new home will maintain a pleasant indoor climate without wasting energy.

Precipitation

Precipitation includes rain, and when combined with lower temperatures includes snow, hail and ice formation. So you need to know how much rain to expect and how much snow to expect.

High levels of precipitation require roofs designed to shed water efficiently, such as steeply sloped roofs in areas with heavy rain or snow. Flat roofs are more suitable for dry climates.

In snowy regions, roofs and structures must be designed to bear the weight of accumulated snow safely.

If you live in an area with frequent rain or snow, your home will require weatherproof materials, such as waterproof sealants, rust-resistant metals, and rot-resistant wood.

Frequent exposure to precipitation will accelerate the wear and tear on your home. If your home design takes your local weather conditions into account, you'll reduce your maintenance responsibilities and and extend your home's lifespan.

Wind

Your home design needs to withstand the wind that occurs at the location of your site. So you need to find out how strong the wind is and from what direction it arrives most of the time.

Strategic placement of trees, shrubs, or fencing can shield your home from strong winds.

The shape and slope of the roof can impact how wind flows around the home. For instance, sloped roofs are better at shedding wind forces, while flat roofs may require additional reinforcement.

In areas prone to high winds, hurricanes, or tornadoes, homes must be designed to withstand strong forces. This includes reinforcing walls, roofs, and foundations to prevent structural damage. High wind areas require securely anchored structures and bracing to prevent uplift or collapse.

You can find out if your home is at risk from hurricanes or tornadoes on the site analysis and disaster page.

Harnessing prevailing winds can enhance natural ventilation, reducing reliance on air conditioning. Properly placed windows, vents, and openings help direct airflow through the home for cooling.

Knowledge of wind direction helps minimize drafts by ensuring windows and doors are sealed properly and positioned away from dominant wind flows.

Designing outdoor areas, such as patios or balconies such that they are protected from the wind, increases their usability and comfort.

Wind direction

Are there any clues on site about wind direction? Look carefully at trees and shrubs. Your site will have it's own micro-climate. Sometimes wind tunnels can be formed by the surrounding buildings and geography which may mean that there are local wind conditions that differ from the prevailing winds.

The clues are often much more subtle than the image below - look carefully.

bent tree showing predominant wind direction

So, for those of you that are members, let's take a look at some great resources for finding out more about your climate.

You can get climate information for free from Weather Spark. Just head on over there, type in your city and then you can take a screen grab of what you need for your site pack.

Here's an example of the information available, based on a Denver location.

There's information on temperature, snowfall and daylight hours. Let's take a closer look at temperature as this gives you an idea of the heating and cooling needs of your home.

Take a look at the temperature boundaries (different colors) and see when you are likely to have your heating / cooling on...

Freezing (<15F) - heating on
Cool (55-65F / 13 – 18C) – heating on
Comfortable (65-75F – 18-23C) - no heating or cooling
Warm (75–85F / 23-29C) – no heating or cooling unless humid
Hot (85-95F / 29-35C) – cooling on
Sweltering (95F+) - cooling on

It's also a good idea to know what the diurnal (between day and night time) temperature swing is as well. There's a chart that shows that as well.

So what can we find out using the information above?

We can see that the humidity is very low, so we may want to consider installing a humidifier system.
The pool score might help you decide whether or not it's worth installing a pool.
The solar energy information will help you decide whether or not to install solar panels.
Finally there's a summary of wind direction which shows that the prevailing winds come from the west, particularly in the winter. There's also an explanation of the wind given on the page "The wind is most often from the east for 3.6 weeks, from 10 July to 4 August, with a peak percentage of 28% on 27 July. The wind is most often from the west for 11 months, from 4 August to 10 July, with a peak percentage of 56% on 1 January."

Another way of visualizing the wind is with a wind rose.

To find a wind rose for your location...

Start here.
Select a network for the state of your site (there may be several to try) and click 'Switch Network'.
Select a station of interest, and click 'Switch Station'.
Then click the *Wind Rose button – if there isn’t a wind rose button, try another network/station combination.

It might take a bit of trial and error to find a site near your neighborhood that has data for a wind rose.

Meteoblue is an alternative but the wind roses are only for the last 2 weeks only so you don't get an accurate reflection of wind direction over the whole year.

While not 100% climate related, why not find out about air quality to help you make a decision on any air filtering systems or appliances you might want to include in your home? The site Meteoblue has air quality information. It also has lots of weather info as well in degrees centigrade rather than farenheit.

Go to Meteoblue
Type in your location
Go to Outdoor and sport on left hand column and select ‘air quality & pollen’..
Take a screen grab of the info (no need to download it) and add it to your site pack.

Wrapping Up

The homes built near to your site will (let's hope) have been built with designs that will withstand and take advantage of the local climate conditions. Take a look at the styles, roof shapes, windows and materials used.

Now that you've learned a little about how the climate can impact your home design you will have a new appreciation for how design elements might exist because of the climate at your site.