Author Topic: Townhome Mounting Challenges  (Read 515 times)

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Offline platonicsolid

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Townhome Mounting Challenges
« on: August 02, 2021, 01:54:47 PM »
Good morning, all!

New here, and first post. This seemed like the best place to get some feedback, thoughts and input. I live in a four-story townhome in an inner-ring suburb. When we moved in last year, a weather station was something on my wish-list, partly for my own curiosity and edification, partly to feed home automation with location-accurate data.

Well, as a birthday gift my wife picked up an Ecowitt wireless weather station and now I'm facing the challenges of how to mount it. It's a multi-part system, with a separate anemometer and rain gauge, so I can separate them as need be. I have no open land to put it on, so am thinking of the following:

For the anemometer:
Following the 7 feet above roof guideline this would be approximately 55' high, which is higher than ideal, but free of obstructions, at least. The house has a North-facing terrace on the front on the fourth floor, and a pole on the wall could get up above the roof once getting past the eave (~16"). I looked at Ambient's WeatherMount as an appealing option for easy battery replacement, but that won't get past the eaves - manual says only 12" max.



Alternately, I could go straight to the roof, although that's tougher to climb up to for battery replacement and other adjustments/repairs.



I'm hesitant to anchor straight into the roof, if only because it's something I've never done before - I've mounted things to exterior walls at a previous home so feel comfortable doing that.

In either case, I'm struggling with the issue of what to do about lightning and grounding. The sensors themselves are wireless, but the mount would be a lightning rod itself. I don't have any good way to run a grounding wire, and from the reading I've done here and elsewhere it's distinctly *not* recommended to send it into the home electrical ground, since that defeats the point. There is, however, a church right across the street, and I'm thinking their spire is close enough to act as a lightning rod to help protect me.



For the rain gauge:

There seem to be three options for placing the rain gauge
First, on whatever pole/mount I wind up using for the anemometer, which would put it very high.

Second, I could mount it on the inside of the terrace wall. That would give it some shielding from the wind, and make it easy to access for maintenance, even if it would still be too high.

Somewhere near this corner would keep it out of the way of the table and chairs too.


Third, I could move it to the South side of the house and put it on the second floor balcony. That would get it much closer to ground level, but I worry that the close proximity of the mass of the house, especially the way the third floor projects and would reduce effective distance from the house - the balcony's only a couple feet deep to begin with.


I could mount it to the fence or to an extension pole to raise it up.

Would appreciate any thoughts, would like to find a way to make this all work adequately, if not perfectly.

Thanks!
« Last Edit: August 02, 2021, 01:59:54 PM by platonicsolid »

Offline gwwilk

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Re: Townhome Mounting Challenges
« Reply #1 on: August 03, 2021, 07:58:15 AM »
I've lived in townhomes for the past 55 years, 50 of which I've had PWS's.  There's no way to mount a system that's fully compliant with the guidelines when you dwell in a townhome.  My compromise has always been to mount the system on the highest possible point, chimneys in my case.

It's not ideal, but few in an urban location without an acreage have an ideal site.  My Tempest, mounted on a 10' pole anchored by a patio umbrella base, is on my ground level patio but it isn't reporting data anywhere except to WeatherFlow.  It's shielded from southerly breezes, but otherwise fairly accurate compared with my chimney mounted wireless VP2+.
Regards, Jerry Wilkins
gwwilk@gmail.com

 

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