A huge focus of feng shui audits concern the front door as it is regarded as the main entryway of energy into a home.
But the importance of the back door often flies under the radar.
A part of this reason is that more and more people live in apartments without back doors. So the topic don’t arise at all during consultations with feng shui masters. There is really very little one can do when the home is not designed to incorporate a back door access.
While many landed houses have back doors, a lot of them are not really back doors by feng shui definition.
So what exactly are back doors? And how should we configure them?
What is a back door
In the most simplest sense, a back door is a door at the rear end of the house where residents can enter and exit the premises. This also means that the door must be aligned with the sitting of the house.
If a door is aligned to the side of the house towards the back area, it is still a side door by definition.
And even if a house has a door at the back side of the house, it does not necessarily make it a back door.
This can occur when the rear door opens to a back yard, pool area, or playground, etc, that is still within the premises of the property. Such layouts and landscapes can circulate stale chi back into the house leaving the dwelling no renewal of energy.
In such cases, the rear gate of the property serves as the back door. And if there is no rear gate, then there is no back door.
However when the rear door opens to a garden area for example, but is aligned with the rear gate, then the rear door can be considered as the back door of the property.
The reason why we should be very specific with these assessments is that the back door of a property plays an important role in regulating the flow of energy in and around the house. And the configuration, or absence of it, needs to be accounted for when detailing feng shui.
In some many apartment design layouts, the entrance into the premises is at the sitting of the apartment as the facing is outwards from the window view. In these circumstances, the entrance is the main door even though it is located at the back of the house as observed from the floor plan or blueprint.
Back door design
When it comes to design, first and foremost, the back door should never upstage the front door.
Some homeowners purchase a new house fully knowing that they would use the back door more often than the front door for entry and exit. Because of this, they basically construct a front door to replace the back door.
Homeowners must be mindful that such remodeling works does not change the orientation of the property unless the whole building is reconstructed to reverse it’s facing. This is because one cannot simply change the facing of a property just from relocating the main access door.
When there is a back door that is bigger and grander than the front door, direct wealth and career luck will be trapped in the bottleneck. It can however, give a boost to those who make money under-the-table when the configuration is right.
The next thing to be mindful of is to have the doorway clear of clutter or any other form of obstruction.
Remember that the front door gobbles up chi for the house, and the back door releases it. Having the former jammed and clogged would give the house constipation!
There’s also a common saying among feng shui circles that a back door at the southwest would mean a wife who is often out and seldom home. This is due to the southwest associated with the kun trigram linked to the matriarch. The same can be said of the husband should the door be at the northwest. However, this is generally a figure of speech and a site has to be inspected to determine whether this affliction is taking root.
Another common feng shui problem that many types of property amusingly suffers from is that the back door is in view when the front door is opened. This can either be directly in a straight line formation or from an angled view.
When the front door opens to a back door forming a straight line, it is what we often refer to a sword through the house.
If the front door opens into the house and has a diagonal view of the back door, then take note that the back door is at the primary wealth location. The implications of this is that no matter how much money the household makes, they would spend it all and find it difficult to retain any of that wealth.
Also note that doors into indoor areas of property should ideally open inwards. This goes as well for back doors.
The only acceptable instance of back doors opening outwards is when it opens to other outdoor area of the house such as garden or patios as mentioned earlier.
Back doors and good feng shui
There are also certain circumstances when using back doors for entry into the house can be beneficial for feng shui.
For example, when a wealth star 8 is at the back door location either as a water star or an annual star. As homeowners might want to activate the auspicious star, using the back door can be a way of waking up the star 8 so that it can go about doing it’s job of bring wealth opportunities to the household. A natal chart with the double 8 behind can bring about such practices.
Another creative technique that advanced feng shui masters can sometimes be observe to set up is to use water dragon formulas to identify the best locations for water (or chi) to exit the premises. The identified locations can then be where the back door is installed.
Homeowners should however, only attempt water dragon configurations under the guidance of experts. This is because when dealing with water, getting things wrong can potentially bring catastrophe to family members.
In the event that the back door is already constructed, is causing feng shui afflictions, and used pretty often by inhabitants, then your only option left might be to set up cure to minimize the negative feng shui.
Knowing the directional location and the facing direction of the door would enable one to prescribe specific remedies.
In the absence of that, some types of remedies that can generally work include adding boulders to the back area outside the back door, hanging crystals at the door frames, placing still water features near the door area to slow down energy, etc.
Finally, don’t stress yourself over what you conclude to be a bad back door configuration. If you are not experiencing bad luck, it might be that there is no problem or that the affliction has already be unknowingly cured by other aspects of the house.
