East Facing House Vastu Plan: Room Placement and Floor Plans for Every Plot Size

By Dilipan Bose, Founder, HireAndBuild Last Updated September 2026 14 min read

Your plot faces east, and everyone from your uncle to your mason has a view on the kitchen. This east facing house vastu plan guide settles it room by room. HireAndBuild has delivered 250+ homes across Chennai since 2020.

Below, you get a room placement table and zoning plans for 30x40, 30x60 and 40x60 plots. You also get Chennai build costs, and the spots where vastu and our climate disagree.

What is an east facing house as per vastu?

A house is east facing when you face east as you step out of its main door. The road usually runs along the east boundary, so the entrance takes the morning sun. Vastu favours this facing because the east belongs to Indra, guardian of the east, and to the rising sun.

That does not make every east facing house a good one. A badly placed door or a toilet in the north-east undoes the advantage, which is why the rest of this guide matters more than the facing itself.

How do you check if your plot is east facing?

You need two minutes and a phone. Follow these steps in order, because a reading taken in the wrong spot is the most common mistake.

1. Stand inside the plot at the proposed entrance, looking out towards the road.
2. Open a compass app and hold the phone flat, well away from steel gates, parked bikes and cars.
3. A reading between roughly 67° and 112° means the plot is east facing; near 45° is north-east facing, and near 135° is south-east facing.
4. Cross-check with the approved layout or the FMB sketch, which shows exactly which boundary meets the road.

Is plot facing the same as house facing?

Not always. Corner plots in newer layouts around Guduvancheri and Kelambakkam often have roads on two sides, and the house facing is set by where you put the main door. Choose the side whose door zone suits your floor plan, not simply the wider road.

If you are still deciding how the front of the house should look, our guide to house elevation design by direction covers the outside. This guide stays inside the walls.

Where should each room go in an east facing house vastu plan?

Put the pooja room and living room in the north-east, the kitchen in the south-east and the master bedroom in the south-west. Staircases belong in the south or west, and toilets in the west or north-west. Keep the centre, called the Brahmasthan, open.

Vastu schools differ on the finer points, so treat the table below as the widely followed baseline, not a rulebook carved in stone. The last column is ours: what each placement does for light, heat and airflow on a Chennai plot.

Where should the main door go?

A pada is one of the equal segments of the Vastu Purusha Mandala grid that divide each wall of a plot. In an east facing house, the pada you pick decides exactly where the main door sits along the road-side wall.

The widely used 32-entrance system splits each side into 8 padas, numbered E1 to E8 from the north-east corner. E3 (Jayanta) and E4 (Mahendra) are the most favoured, while E7 and E8 near the south-east corner are the ones most schools reject. Older 9-pada systems also exist, so if your family follows a particular consultant, use their count.

Here is the practical maths. Measured on the plot boundary, a 30 ft frontage gives padas of 3 ft 9 in each, so E3 and E4 together offer a 7 ft 6 in band. That comfortably fits a 3 ft 6 in main door and its frame; some consultants measure the building wall instead, which narrows the band.

Where should the kitchen go?

The south-east is the fire zone, called Agneya, so vastu puts the kitchen there with the cook facing east. The north-west, called Vayavya, is the accepted alternative when the south-east is taken, and on a small plot the car usually takes it. Never place the kitchen in the north-east, which vastu keeps for water and prayer.

Where should the bedrooms go?

The master bedroom belongs in the south-west, called Nairutya, the zone vastu reads as heavy and stable. Children's and guest rooms go north-west or west. Sleep with your head to the south or east, since most schools advise against pointing it north.

What do east facing vastu floor plans look like for 30x40, 30x60 and 40x60 plots?

The zones stay the same on every plot; only the room sizes and the car parking change. A 30x40 plot usually needs one compromise, because the car takes the south-east corner. From 30x60 upwards, the kitchen can stay south-east with parking in front of it.

The three plans below are drawn north-up with the road on the east. They show which room goes in which zone, not a measured drawing, because setbacks and structure come from your approved plan.

30x40 east facing house plan (1,200 sq ft plot, 2BHK with car parking)

On a 30 ft frontage, a car needs about 10 ft by 17 ft once you allow for opening the doors. The south-east front corner is the only practical spot, so the kitchen shifts to the north-west, the zone vastu already accepts as the alternative. Everything else stays textbook: door in E3–E4, pooja in the north-east, master bedroom in the south-west.

These are typical room sizes that fit this zoning on a 30x40 plot. Your architect will adjust them to the setbacks on your approval.

30x60 east facing house plan (1,800 sq ft plot, 3BHK)

The extra 20 ft of depth changes everything for the kitchen. The car parks at the front of the south-east zone and the kitchen sits right behind it, so both get the vastu position they want. With the dining next to the kitchen, the plan fits three bedrooms, including the south-west master.

40x60 east facing house plan (2,400 sq ft plot, one ground, 3BHK)

One ground, 2,400 sq ft in Chennai terms, is where vastu stops being a squeeze. You can keep the centre open as a small courtyard, add a study on the north side and still give the kitchen its south-east corner. A 40 ft frontage also means E3–E4 is a full 10 ft wide, enough for a double door.

If you plan a first floor, put the master bedroom upstairs in the south-west and keep the north-east of that floor lighter, as a balcony or open terrace. The overhead tank then sits above the south-west, over the heaviest part of the frame.

Where should the pooja room, staircase and water tanks go in an east facing house?

Place the pooja room in the north-east, the staircase in the south or west, and the underground sump in the north-east. The septic tank goes north-west, and the overhead tank sits above the south-west corner.

Pooja room

The north-east corner, called Ishanya, is the zone vastu treats as the most sacred, and you should face east while you pray. Keep the pooja room off any wall it would share with a toilet, and never tuck it under the staircase. On a tight 30x40 plan, a wall-mounted mandir on the north-east wall of the living room is the accepted workaround.

Staircase

Stairs are heavy, so vastu puts them in the south, west or south-west, climbing clockwise when seen from above. A staircase in the north-east or at the centre is the placement most schools reject.

On our projects, the staircase position is fixed before the structural drawings start. It sets the column grid and the roof access to the overhead tank, so moving it later means redesigning the frame.

Sump, borewell, septic tank and overhead tank

Most independent houses in Chennai have a sump, and many add a borewell, so this matters more here than in most vastu guides. Vastu puts underground water in the north-east and the septic tank in the north-west, which also keeps the two apart.

• Put the sump and borewell in the north-east, where vastu wants water to sit below ground.
• Place the septic tank in the north-west, on the far side from your drinking water source.
• Ask your structural engineer to mark the safe gap between septic tank and borewell on the drawing, since it depends on your soil.
• Set the rainwater harvesting pit, mandatory for buildings in Tamil Nadu, in the north-east beside the sump.
• Mount the overhead tank above the south-west, the corner meant to carry the most weight.

Does vastu for east facing houses work with Chennai's climate?

Mostly, yes. East facing plans put living spaces where the morning sun is gentle and push heavy rooms to the south-west. The one real clash is heat, because the south-west master bedroom takes Chennai's harsh afternoon sun.

Knowing where the two agree tells you what to keep. Knowing where they clash tells you where to spend a little extra on design.

Where vastu and building science agree

• A south-east kitchen catches early sun, which dries surfaces before the humid part of the day.
• North-east living rooms stay cooler, because north and east walls take far less direct afternoon heat than west walls.
• An open centre with a courtyard or a high ventilator lets hot air rise and escape, pulling cooler air through the rooms around it.
• A heavy staircase and tank on the south-west act as a buffer against the hottest sides of the house.

Where you need to design around vastu

The south-west master bedroom is one of the hottest rooms in the plan through the afternoon. Give it smaller west windows and a deep sunshade, and on a single-storey house, add heat-reflective paint on the roof above it.

Chennai gets most of its yearly rain from the north-east monsoon between October and December, according to the India Meteorological Department. Those winds drive rain straight at the north and east openings that vastu asks you to keep large.

A chajja is a concrete sunshade that projects over a window. In an east facing house, a deeper chajja over the north-east windows keeps monsoon rain out without shrinking the glass.

What if your east facing plot can't follow vastu fully?

Fix the rules that are hardest to change after construction first: the main door, a clear north-east and a south-west master bedroom. Then use the accepted alternatives, like a north-west kitchen, for the rest. On narrow plots, setbacks often make the compromise for you.

Under the Tamil Nadu Combined Development and Building Rules, 2019, setbacks depend on your plot size and road width, and CMDA or DTCP checks them before approval. On a narrow east frontage, the front setback can eat into the north-east corner you wanted for the pooja room. Our guide to building plan approval in Chennai explains how that review works.

Which vastu rules matter most, and which can bend?

Work down this list in order. The higher an item sits, the costlier it is to fix once the house is built.

1. Keep the main door in E3–E4, since moving a door means cutting a structural wall.
2. Keep toilets, the kitchen and the staircase out of the north-east.
3. Put the master bedroom in the south-west, or at least on the south or west side.
4. Keep the kitchen south-east, falling back to the north-west if parking needs the corner.
5. Leave colours, mirrors and décor for last, because you can change them any weekend.

Do vastu remedies like pyramids and crystals work?

Remedies such as pyramids, crystals and bowls of salt are matters of belief, and we know of no study that measures their effect. If they give your family peace of mind, they cost very little. Just don't let them stand in for a sound layout.

How much does it cost to build an east facing vastu house in Chennai?

Vastu zoning does not change the per sq ft construction rate. At HireAndBuild's rates of ₹1,999 to ₹2,999 per sq ft, a 1,200 sq ft built-up house costs ₹23.99 lakh to ₹35.99 lakh. The package you choose moves the price far more than the layout does.

Even the Basic package uses ISI-certified steel and cement, so the vastu layout never comes at the cost of the structure.

Here is what the three zoning plans above cost to build on the ground floor, across all four HireAndBuild packages.

The built-up areas are indicative, and your approved plan sets the real figure. Extras such as the compound wall, sump and tanks vary by package, so check the full construction cost per sq ft in Chennai before you budget.

Vastu only adds cost when it is decided late. Moving a staircase or a septic tank after the structural drawings are done means redrawing and sometimes rebuilding, which is why zoning comes first. For a three-bedroom home in more detail, see our breakdown of the cost to build a 3BHK house in Chennai.

What else do Chennai homeowners ask about east facing vastu?