Making a Stevenson Screen using lourve doors

[choc-a-holic]

I thought I would share my Stevenson Screen building efforts with others in the hope that it will help someone out there

I bought two louvre doors off Trademe for $2…and to my surprise they are made of Rimu…you find some great deals here.  I had to think twice about using the doors given they were Rimu, but it also meant they would last longer in the elements.  The doors were standard door height with the louvres on the top half and full panels on the lower part of the door.  That was okay as you don’t really want your screen to be higher than 1.5 metres so I had plenty of door to play with.

I measured the louvre section and using a saw I cut the section in half.  This created the two additional sides that I would require.

The two full pieces (1.5m) would be the sides, and the two additional pieces would form the front (door) and back of the screen.  Next I screwed three pieces together to form the box and used hinges to attach the door.

The photo below show that the louvres are not all the same height at the top…this did not matter…It was more important to me, to have the bottom of the louvred section all at the same height.

I then added the roof and the box base, which is anchored in place with cross supports I screwed to the legs.

I am limited to 4 photos per post so I will post the rest of the process in the next post.

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[choc-a-holic]

Continuing from the last post...

I then used a jigsaw to remove the panels from the bottom section on each door (leaving the door frame intact) so the air could flow through bottom of the screen and it would have legs to stand on.  I then added the base and roof to the box area.  I also added base supports for the other two sides.

You will see from the photos below that I have two roof sections…when researching building my own screen on the weather watch forum, this was recommended to reduce the heat within the box.  I used pieces of plastic hose pipe to create the spacers.  Up to this point my total investment was around $5

The final stage was also the most expensive stage …. Painting the screen!  I managed to get a paint brush that had angled bristles, which made it easier to paint the louvres.  The paint was expensive, however hopefully a good investment.  It was recommended that you use white reflective paint and I got the best I could find.  On completion it cost me around $50

I had two re-enforcing rods folded in a U shape, which I would use to hold the Stevenson’s screen in place.  I had this bent so that there was room for me to lever the rods out of the ground if I need to move it.

My Stevenson screen is complete

[choc-a-holic]

Forgot to say, I have been using it for approximately two years now and it is still working well.  Thought you might be interested in the results too...the graph below shows the difference between two temperature gauges…in the middle of summer – temp 1 is inside the Stevenson screen and temp 2 is mounted using the supplied gauge cover and mounting brackets that come with the Oregon Scientific WMR200 (my weather station).

[TokWW]

Well done choc-a-holic - great handiwork and a fantastic find.  I guess you had you eyes open for the right materials for a while! Nice paint job too, and an excellent result.