Enter the compass bearing you read at your main door, looking out, and this checker names the direction your house faces, finds the entrance pada that bearing falls in, and says what the classical text and popular modern Vastu each say. Nothing is scored and nothing is predicted.
How to read the bearing
Stand in the doorway, or just inside the main door, and look straight out, the way a visitor faces you when they arrive. Open the compass app on your phone, hold the phone flat and level, and read the bearing. This is the direction the door looks towards, the direction your house faces. For a house on a street, it is usually towards the road.
A few habits make the reading trustworthy. Calibrate the compass first, usually by moving the phone in a figure of eight. Step away from steel grilles, fridges, cars, speakers and the phone’s own magnetic case. Take three readings from slightly different spots and use the middle one.
Magnetic or true north. Your phone may offer either. In India the gap between them is a degree or two, well inside the error of a phone compass, so either is fine. In other parts of the world the gap can be much larger, and the app’s true north setting is then the safer choice. The directions do not reverse in the southern hemisphere: north is still north.
The eight facings
Each of the eight directions takes 45 degrees, centred on the compass point. North runs from 337.5 to 22.5 degrees, north-east from 22.5 to 67.5, east from 67.5 to 112.5, south-east from 112.5 to 157.5, south from 157.5 to 202.5, south-west from 202.5 to 247.5, west from 247.5 to 292.5 and north-west from 292.5 to 337.5. The result also shows this table.
Sorting houses by facing is a modern popular habit. The classical texts do not do it. They judge the entrance square by square, using the 32 padas of the Vastu Purusha Mandala, and they place rooms by the zone of the plot. That is why the result shows both: the facing, which is the popular grouping, and the entrance pada, which is the classical reading.
The entrance pada
The pada is found the same way as in the entrance checker: the full circle is split into 32 equal sectors of 11.25 degrees, starting from the north-east corner. The names and order follow the Brihat Samhita, chapter 53, and the results follow the same chapter as two English translations render them. The method is exact for a square plot and approximate for any other, and it is approximate for a door that is not at the middle of the home’s outer wall. The entrance article explains the padas in full.
What it cannot tell you
It cannot tell you whether a house is good for you, and it cannot be a reason to buy, sell or rebuild. It does not look at the plot’s shape, the road, the slope, the light or how you live, and a facing cannot be changed in any case. If a result worries you, read remedies without demolition first. For where each room goes, see the room placement guide.
Frequently asked questions
↳ Do I stand inside looking out, or outside looking in?
Stand at the main door and look out, the way a visitor faces you when they arrive. The bearing you read is the direction the house faces. If you read it from outside looking in, add or subtract 180 degrees.
↳ What if my house faces a diagonal direction?
The result names the diagonal facing, such as north-east, and gives the nearest pada. The classical grid has doors on its four sides, so a diagonal reading is approximate. If the door is on a wall that faces a main direction, the wall matters more than the corner.
↳ Does magnetic or true north matter?
Very little in India, where the gap is a degree or two. A phone compass is rarely better than five to ten degrees. If you live far from India, the gap can be larger, so choose true north in your compass app.
↳ Is a south-facing house bad?
Popular modern Vastu is often cautious about it, but that is a modern rule. The classical entrance table has a favourable pada on the south side and cautions on most of the others. The guide for south-facing houses goes through it.
↳ Does it work in a flat?
You can take the bearing of your own front door, but the classical padas describe a house on its own plot. In a flat the door opens onto a shared corridor, so read the result as a loose guide. The apartments article explains what carries over.