Topic: Recommendations for our New Home Build

[nqweatheraus]

Hi all,

I'm looking for some recommendations on weather stations/equipment/sensors to expand my weather collection.

For some context, we are currently building a house in Australia's capital city, Canberra.
Canberra is probably Australia's only city with really well defined seasons.
Winter mornings are typically -1°C (30°F), but can be as cold as -7°C (19°F). Days are typically around 10°C (50°F).
Summer mornings are typically 15°C (59°F), days are typically 27°C (81°F), but can be as high as 40°C (104°F).

The house we are building is a two-storey house, facing the west. The dominant wind direction here is Westerly.
Our house will have a completely clear view towards the west as we are the most western house in the estate.
Out the front of the house is a small lake across the road and then a decline down a hill, overlooking large open space and mountains in the distance.

Our house will therefore be very well exposed to the dominant wind direction.

I currently own a Davis Vantage Vue which is a great system, but I would like to expand into have some more equipment.

I am currently thinking of mounting my existing Davis Vantage Vue on the house roof. This will be approximately 8-8.5 metres (26' - 28') above ground level, so should be well exposed to pick up the wind.

I am currently considering also purchasing a Davis Vantage Pro2 Plus with 24hr FARS and locating this in my backyard. This would be approximately 1.5-2 metres (5' - 7') above ground level, with the Anemometer located up on the roof with the Vue.

I would also like to purchase an Ultrasonic Anemometer as well, as I'm quite interested in these. My thoughts here are the EcoWitt WS80. My thought is that this would also be mounted on the roof for the roof wind exposure.

I've not had any experience with the VP2 or EcoWitt system and would love any recommendations, or other ideas.
I was quite interested in the Barani designed system, but found that this only updates once every 10 minutes which is not appropriate to my needs.

My main concerns here are:
- Accurately recording the overnight low temperature. I'm hoping the 24hr FARS on the VP2 located in the backyard will be suitable for this. My current Vantage Vue always runs 1-2°C (2-4°F) above surrounding stations during cold clear winter nights, and I've read online that this appears to be common with the Vue. Will the 24hr FARS help with getting a more accurate overnight temperature?

As an example, on the coldest morning this last Winter, my Vue recorded -3.5°C (25.7°F), while surrounding stations in my area were all around -6°C to -5°C (21°F to 23°F) on that same morning. I am hoping that the 24hr FARS will make my readings a little bit more in line with other nearby stations.

If you know of an alternate station/sensor that is very responsive during low temperatures and easily connected online, I'd be interested to know more. I'm happy to add a 2nd sensor in the backyard if there are good recommendations here.

The Vue will be well exposed to the wind on the roof and should record relatively accurate daytime temperatures when the wind is blowing, but I anticipate will record high on the roof during light winds. We will have a white roof, so that may help a little.
My thought here is that the VP2 with 24h FARS in the backyard should be suitable to record accurate daytime temperatures on those warm, sunny, calm days.
I would like the Vue to record the temperatures on the roof purely for my own interest to see how the height and wind affect the temperature compared to the backyard sensor.

Having the three anemometers on the roof at about 8-8.5 m should be great for capturing the wind accurately.

I am interested in your recommendations specifically in regards to the siting of the stations, whether the 24hr FARS is necessary, the performance of the EcoWitt WS80, any recommendations on alternatives for Ultrasonic Anemometers, any recommendations on a responsive temperature sensor.

Really appreciate any and all feedback.
Thank you very much!

[mihec]

Hi there,

if I was in your situation, I would:
* keep the Vantage Vue as the main station
* build a Stevenson screen and put in 2x 1-wire temperature probes + Wemos D1 mini
* avoid the ultrasonic anemometer

I own or take care of few different weather stations. Best experience I have with a Vue with no single failure or problem in over 5 years. It is mounted at about 8-10 meters height so not really logging 2m temperatures. The windy location helps except for rare calm mornings. Very happy with this setup.

The Vantage Pro2 I have in 2 other locations, with seasonal change similar to yours. The Davis' standard shield helps very well even though it is not a FARS. I have a wooden Stevenson screen with those 2x 1-wire temperature sensors which I build to see how well the Davis' shield works in direct sunlight. The two 1-wire sensors match with almost a constant 0.3°C difference. The temperature from Davis is within decimals from the 1-wire during nights (maybe lower for 0.3-0.5°C), during the day (even if cloudy) the Davis shows 1-1.5 °C higher. This could be a linearity from either the Davis or 1-wire (1€ probes...), who knows. If you are just interested in the "real" backyard temperature, I think a cheap extra sensor is enough.

Regarding the ultrasonic anemometer: I purchased a Weatherflow station back in 2018 and don't have good experience with it (I've had 3 Sky sensors, since they kept replacing them). I even have a setup where the ultrasonic is mounted 30cm from the Davis' anemometer and both show the same windspeed. Sometimes the Davis shows even higher gusts due to cups inertia. Ultrasonic just samples with a e.g. 3-sec period but the gusts could be much shorter. The ultrasonics have other problems you cannot avoid such as rain drops on the buttons, etc. If I were you and the budget allows, I'd then buy a Vantage Pro2, a wireless transmitter for the anemometer and put the classic anemometer next to your Vue. And save the money from the ultrasonic anemometer and buy the airquality sensor instead.

Others may have different opinion, though.