Fiddling on the Roof

OK, so I have been wanting to install the anemometer (wind meter) for my Davis Vantage Pro electronic weather station for some time now. Its position on the ground in my backyard (photo of setup) just wasn't working out. Standard height for wind equipment was 30 meters and I didn't even have it 2 meters up.

But I just moved into My New House [JessePedia] and didn't want to immediately start drilling holes into my roof right above my bedroom. So I schemed and I plotted: How could I install the anemometer on the roof without: A. - Making the roof leak or B. - Attaching a metal object which would be the tallest thing around (hello, lightning).

When a local Radio Shack went out of business this summer, I found a vent pipe mount there -- perfect! My house has a sewer and radon pipe on top which would be perfect. Plus, the radon pipe is on the western end of the house, so I'd have a shot at getting some winter wind gusts (if I could get it up above the roof line). Of course, separating the anemometer from the main weather station requires an expensive retransmitter from Davis, but I sold some old weather station equipment on eBay and by last week was ready to finally install it all.

I put my trusty ladder on the porch and climbed on to the roof. Hmmm... this roof isn't just a little steeper than our old one (which I had no problem installing all sorts of wires and gadgets on)... it's a lot steeper. Oh well, no pain no gain. I shimmy to the sewer pipe and look down.

Yikes. I'm not scared of heights as a rule, but in certain situations I can get a little spooked. Looking back down the roof to the ladder (and to the ground 20 feet below) I suddenly wondered if I could crawl back down without tumbling to the ground. After 15 minutes wrestling with the vent pipe mount with a breeze of sewage in my face and I was ready to give up. I cowardly scooted back down the roof to the safety of the ladder and called my father-in-law, who runs a Multi-Service locally.

He strides confidently across the roof and has the thing installed in about 10 minutes. The pipe wasn't as high as I thought it would be and the unit is actually not much higher than the roof, but it's certainly going to give better data than it did on the ground, and it's probably best for my community's rules and regulations if it's less obvious (our regulations don't expressedly ban any communications devices and I figure if the people down the road can have a bent-over TV antenna surely this won't set off any covenant alarms). We'll give it a few months and see how it does. It's actually a rather nice looking installation if I say so myself. And since it's wireless and installed with plastic pipes, lightning danger should be minimized.

You can see the data and graphs from my weather station here. A photo of the installation is available here, as well as a closeup version.