Decking and SkyShed Pod

[nightvision]

I seem to remember another thread on a POD type obsy set on decking, rain water spread along the grooves in the decking and to the inside of the POD, resulting in bad condensation problems.  If your POD has no integral floor make sure the decking is smooth side up (so you have some chance of sealing the joint) or better again the pod sits on its own water proof floor.

[Pan Euro]

I seem to remember another thread on a POD type obsy set on decking, rain water spread along the grooves in the decking and to the inside of the POD, resulting in bad condensation problems.  If your POD has no integral floor make sure the decking is smooth side up (so you have some chance of sealing the joint) or better again the pod sits on its own water proof floor.

I currently have that problem. I haven't solved it yet, I think I will probably put new boards down.

[JayStar]

I seem to remember another thread on a POD type obsy set on decking, rain water spread along the grooves in the decking and to the inside of the POD, resulting in bad condensation problems.  If your POD has no integral floor make sure the decking is smooth side up (so you have some chance of sealing the joint) or better again the pod sits on its own water proof floor.

Good advice.  I did plan on putting in a floor but not a waterproof one.  Will add thsi thought into the plan.

Thanks.

[JayStar]

I have finally started the actual build of my observatory - 9 months after delivery!

Anyway pier foundations are now in and decking base completed tomorrow ready for joists.  Really looking forward to getting the POD up and running.  I've also managed to significantly prune the trees too (well a tree surgeon did) and I can get a decent view from about 25 degrees up.

[JayStar]

I finished building the decking and half way through the POD build.  The POD is so difficult to put together - the decking was a piece of cake by comparison!

Deck with half finished POD structure and flooring inside ( I got the interlocking rubber matting and sat the whole POD on top of it... the edges will be trimmed outside later and sealed.).

Tree surgeon next week (needs some more pruning on another tree).. despite how it looks I can get about 270 degrees from about 20 degrees up (pending some lowering of the tree height and width on the left of the third image). You might be able to spot my cat in the 3rd image - he's waiting to move in already.

Can't wait to finish this stage (it's been a long time coming) so I can thoroughly water test and plan electrics/data and moving the equipment in.

 

[Gina]

Very smart

[Singlin]

Best Sky Shed Pod I have ever seen. 

 

[Mark at Beaufort]

Jaystar that looks very very nice and you have made an excellent decking set up.

[r3i]

Looks like you've done a quality job there - superb decking.  Bet you can't wait to get the scope up and running.

[Uplooker]

Yes, excellent work. It does look very well done.

I am curious as to what your shy view is like as the obsey seems to be surrounded by trees

[JayStar]

1 hour ago, Uplooker said:

Yes, excellent work. It does look very well done.

I am curious as to what your shy view is like as the obsey seems to be surrounded by trees

The tree on the left of the first image had no work around except for a slight trim - it blocks NE to SE (anout 90 degrees) and an altitude of up to 80 degrees (s pretty much a write off for that part of the sky).

The tree to the right in the first image is being lowered and trimmed, I'll actually be able to see from an altitude of 20-25 degrees (maybe a bit higher) once it's worked on by the tree surgeon (which will be the last bit of tree surgery)

The tree in the foreground in the third image is OK... it is lower than the house which it is in front of and I can see at an altitude of 20 degrees

Basically it all means I have a decent view from SE to Ne (270 degrees) from an altitude ranging from 20-25 degrees.

It's not perfect, but ok for me and worth it for the fixed location and convenience.

[JayStar]

1 hour ago, r3i said:

Looks like you've done a quality job there - superb decking.  Bet you can't wait to get the scope up and running.

Yep can't wait.. it's taken me ages to get this far as my father-in-law an I did all the work ourselves, had problems with planning permission and was way too busy to get started until this summer (I had the pod sitting in storage for almost a year!)  so will be making the most of the finished obsy! 

[saac]

Congratulations JayStar on a neat looking build, it sits really well in your garden. You're  going to be seriously impressed by how much a permanent setup brings to enjoyment of astronomy. 

Jim

[JayStar]

Just did the water test with the hose - uh oh... I have a LOT of work to do to get this thing usable.. currently water pours in the joints enough to fill a bucket every minute or two.A heavy sustained downpour would have my equipment underwater!

Going to need to get some more foam weather strip and start thinking creatively because the joints will never keep the water out without some modding.It's funny, when I read that there might be some leaks I thought of a few drops, but not water gushing in like a hose pipe LOL.

[ollypenrice]

There is now a tailored cover available, I gather, but it would really be better to stop the leaks at source.

Olly

[Guest]

On 5/20/2015 at 22:55, ollypenrice said:

Come on folks, we need planning departments to stop the country being drowned by hideous structures. I mean, without them you'd get things like this being given planning consent.

Oh, it was given planning consent? Well at least they stop private individuals putting up decks in the privacy of their own homes. Phew, that's a relief.

Olly

I couldn't agree more Olly.....a BURGER KING?!?! What were they thinking....only a MacDonald's, that palace of all the finest foods, will be passed by our planning departments - thank the gods! :-)

David

[JayStar]

43 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

There is now a tailored cover available, I gather, but it would really be better to stop the leaks at source.

Olly

Yes - I have the cover and to be honest that is going to suffice, but would like to stop the leak at source as you say... there was a post on this forum from a user of a POD that created an internal guttering system by the two pivots - I am going to do the same as well as tinker with the placement of the foam pivot seals.

Cheers

John

[JayStar]

Some rain tonight and completely dry inside...I think I may have simulated an Amazonian rain storm with the hose before.

Feeling more confident I can keep the rain out.

[barrie greenwood]

I like this a lot it really looks the part and a nice job as well.

Well done, I'm now trying to convince the missus for something similar! it really is a good job

Baz

[JayStar]

I've now got the water ingress down to just the pivots dripping water in during a rainfall.  It was OK for me until I realised that putting on the cover is a two person job (I wanted to use the cover as extra protection) and takes a bit of time which is unrealistic in the dead of night.  

I am considering dumping this for a different solution and putting the money down to the cost of experience. 

 

[Oddsocks]

Hi John,

The pivot leaks are a nuisance and it is a weak part of the POD design.

As you spotted earlier, I fitted internal guttering to my POD, below both pivot joints, but in the end I got rid of the POD and now have a PULSAR dome.

This was not because of the leaks but because I wanted full remote capability, now my partner and I are both retired we want to travel much more and plan to be out of the country for three or four months every year so the POD had to go and be replaced by a reliable automation system that I can operate by iPad or cyber cafe' from pretty much anywhere.

A couple of tips for you,

In my POD the seams of the two clamshell segments did not align perfectly, there was approximately a 1.5cm difference between the inner shell and the outer so the foam seal never really aligned properly, I solved this by adding a stack of large stainless steel "repair" washers to the pivot bolt in-between the two shells to force the mating surfaces into alignment and again some more washers on the pivot bolt on the inside of the smaller shell so that as the shell is opened and closed the two segments always stay in line.

The other thing I did was to buy some thicker foam seal on eBay for the shell joints, this was around 8mm thicker than the supplied stuff and helped make a tighter joint. In the assembly instructions and video it is not that clear but the foam seal should not "follow" the line of the moulded lip of the shells on the horizontal section (where most of the water collects) but it should be applied with a steep downward slope so that any water that collects on the "rim" of the shells and flows over the lip seal is diverted down and outwards quickly.

If you do go down the same route that I did and fit internal guttering these were made up by taking a standard "centre section" square down coupler, gluing a pair of end plates to a thin piece of straight guttering and gluing these to the centre section, then on the down pipe outlet that was glued to a standard "water butt intercept joint" that comes complete with a flexible hose and coupler joint, this was just bolted to a drilled hole in the wall of the POD, finally a plastic bung was glued into the the "down" outlet of the intercept joint so that all the water entering the downpipes can only flow outwards through the hose.

Sounds complicated but in reality very simple, all the parts came from the standard B&Q range, pictures below....

Last thing to look out for that might be a problem, sometimes water drips will track along below the lip of the shell and end up filling the dome wheel recesses, this then soaks into the wheel bearings and under the joint between wheel bearing and plastic tyre, in the winter if this freezes it splits the plastic tyres and jams the wheels. I had a couple of wheel wells that always seemed to collect water and was never able to say for sure if it was condensation running down the inside of the dome or external rain water but after replacing a few of the wheels because of water damage I drilled an 6mm hole, just off the horizontal, angling lower towards the outside of the POD, from outside the dome wall and into the bottom of the wheel wells that were affected, and glued in a piece of 6mm OD plastic tubing that led the water out of the wheel well to the outside of the dome. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of that but I'm sure you get the idea, then any water that does drip into the wheel wells can escape before it freezes.

When I eventually installed a dehumidifier I added some flexible "solid" draught and water proofing strip used for garage door bottoms all the way around the inside of the walls just below the upper shells that reduced the gap between wall and shell to just a few mm, you can just see the black strip in the photos, and this meant the dehumidifier just had to dry the POD and not the neighbours gardens as well. I did try extra ventilation and running a simple fan before the dehumidifier but whatever I tried the mount, pier and telescope were often running wet with condensation at certain times of the year but this is mostly down to living in a river valley just a mile from the sea and having the associated high humidity levels.

Partner and I are in Canada at the moment and I saw a couple of Skysheds from the train window last week, it is a shame they have still not addressed the water leak issue, a small moulding change to the clam shells to remove the horizontal "rim" and replace it with an angled rim, possibly with the occasional depressed intrusion (like the "crimping" of a pie or pastie), and this would shed water from the clam shells directly away from the rim instead of letting it pool and run over the joints, plus a slightly higher seal moulding where the two shells meet and that would stop 99% of the water ingress but I guess they don't want to spend the money on new rotational moulds...

So that is my SGL fix for this week, going on an organised gold panning adventure trip for the next five days, asked in the pharmacy this morning about mosquito and midge deterrent, they laughed and said it's the bears I need to worry about! 

 

 

 

 

William.

[JayStar]

1 hour ago, Oddsocks said:

Hi John,

The pivot leaks are a nuisance and it is a weak part of the POD design.

As you spotted earlier, I fitted internal guttering to my POD, below both pivot joints, but in the end I got rid of the POD and now have a PULSAR dome.

This was not because of the leaks but because I wanted full remote capability, now my partner and I are both retired we want to travel much more and plan to be out of the country for three or four months every year so the POD had to go and be replaced by a reliable automation system that I can operate by iPad or cyber cafe' from pretty much anywhere.

A couple of tips for you,

In my POD the seams of the two clamshell segments did not align perfectly, there was approximately a 1.5cm difference between the inner shell and the outer so the foam seal never really aligned properly, I solved this by adding a stack of large stainless steel "repair" washers to the pivot bolt in-between the two shells to force the mating surfaces into alignment and again some more washers on the pivot bolt on the inside of the smaller shell so that as the shell is opened and closed the two segments always stay in line.

The other thing I did was to buy some thicker foam seal on eBay for the shell joints, this was around 8mm thicker than the supplied stuff and helped make a tighter joint. In the assembly instructions and video it is not that clear but the foam seal should not "follow" the line of the moulded lip of the shells on the horizontal section (where most of the water collects) but it should be applied with a steep downward slope so that any water that collects on the "rim" of the shells and flows over the lip seal is diverted down and outwards quickly.

If you do go down the same route that I did and fit internal guttering these were made up by taking a standard "centre section" square down coupler, gluing a pair of end plates to a thin piece of straight guttering and gluing these to the centre section, then on the down pipe outlet that was glued to a standard "water butt intercept joint" that comes complete with a flexible hose and coupler joint, this was just bolted to a drilled hole in the wall of the POD, finally a plastic bung was glued into the the "down" outlet of the intercept joint so that all the water entering the downpipes can only flow outwards through the hose.

Sounds complicated but in reality very simple, all the parts came from the standard B&Q range, pictures below....

Last thing to look out for that might be a problem, sometimes water drips will track along below the lip of the shell and end up filling the dome wheel recesses, this then soaks into the wheel bearings and under the joint between wheel bearing and plastic tyre, in the winter if this freezes it splits the plastic tyres and jams the wheels. I had a couple of wheel wells that always seemed to collect water and was never able to say for sure if it was condensation running down the inside of the dome or external rain water but after replacing a few of the wheels because of water damage I drilled an 6mm hole, just off the horizontal, angling lower towards the outside of the POD, from outside the dome wall and into the bottom of the wheel wells that were affected, and glued in a piece of 6mm OD plastic tubing that led the water out of the wheel well to the outside of the dome. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of that but I'm sure you get the idea, then any water that does drip into the wheel wells can escape before it freezes.

When I eventually installed a dehumidifier I added some flexible "solid" draught and water proofing strip used for garage door bottoms all the way around the inside of the walls just below the upper shells that reduced the gap between wall and shell to just a few mm, you can just see the black strip in the photos, and this meant the dehumidifier just had to dry the POD and not the neighbours gardens as well. I did try extra ventilation and running a simple fan before the dehumidifier but whatever I tried the mount, pier and telescope were often running wet with condensation at certain times of the year but this is mostly down to living in a river valley just a mile from the sea and having the associated high humidity levels.

Partner and I are in Canada at the moment and I saw a couple of Skysheds from the train window last week, it is a shame they have still not addressed the water leak issue, a small moulding change to the clam shells to remove the horizontal "rim" and replace it with an angled rim, possibly with the occasional depressed intrusion (like the "crimping" of a pie or pastie), and this would shed water from the clam shells directly away from the rim instead of letting it pool and run over the joints, plus a slightly higher seal moulding where the two shells meet and that would stop 99% of the water ingress but I guess they don't want to spend the money on new rotational moulds...

So that is my SGL fix for this week, going on an organised gold panning adventure trip for the next five days, asked in the pharmacy this morning about mosquito and midge deterrent, they laughed and said it's the bears I need to worry about! 

 

 

William.

 

Thanks for the post - yes I managed to get hold of all the parts to sort out the drainage system you had.  Will give it a go... I have managed to find a way to put the POD cover on more easily and quickly which will help and means I don't have to dump the cover and look for a different solution.  That should stop any water getting in during rain. 

I have a lot of work to do kitting out with electrics c, so will spend the next few months getting set up and using the POD to see it it's a long term keeper (or whether I go down the route of a PULSAR or something similar!).

Enjoy the holiday!

John

[JayStar]

So it would appear that the Skyshed Pod COVER is not totally waterproof.  Quite heavy rain last night and even with the cover on the water was slowly dripping into the POD at the pivot joint and quite a bit of water had gathered on the flange.  

I think it might be because of the seams on Pod Cover - so I am going to try and put some Lexel along each seam to see if that helps.  If that does not work, I will have to line the existing cover with some further tarp, overlapping to create the shape instead of creating seams.  It does seem like a very tough task to make this Pod waterproof no matter what yu do.

[Oddsocks]

It is amazing how far communications has progressed, lying here in my camp bed after a days gold panning in brilliant weather, back of beyond, 40km from nearest town and full WiFi internet access curtesy of trip organisers sat link....are there really any places left where you can be totally isolated?

Not found any gold yet myself but partner found a couple of tiny flakes this afternoon, value around $10 Canadian so looks like we will have a bit of spare cash on arrival back in the UK!

Anyway, to the point, would not recommend using Lexel sealant on the removable Skyshed cover seams, it dries really stiff and rigid after a couple of months exposure to the elements plus it contains the solvent Toluene which might melt the synthetic fabric used to make the cover, I would look at something like iron-on tent seam tape like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seam-Sealing-Tape-Waterproof-Transparent/dp/B00ZROHPYI/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1473232428&sr=8-4&keywords=seam+sealant+tent

William.

p.s. If we find a big nugget we are not coming back....so I have been told....

[JayStar]

On 9/7/2016 at 08:18, Oddsocks said:

It is amazing how far communications has progressed, lying here in my camp bed after a days gold panning in brilliant weather, back of beyond, 40km from nearest town and full WiFi internet access curtesy of trip organisers sat link....are there really any places left where you can be totally isolated?

Not found any gold yet myself but partner found a couple of tiny flakes this afternoon, value around $10 Canadian so looks like we will have a bit of spare cash on arrival back in the UK!

Anyway, to the point, would not recommend using Lexel sealant on the removable Skyshed cover seams, it dries really stiff and rigid after a couple of months exposure to the elements plus it contains the solvent Toluene which might melt the synthetic fabric used to make the cover, I would look at something like iron-on tent seam tape like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seam-Sealing-Tape-Waterproof-Transparent/dp/B00ZROHPYI/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1473232428&sr=8-4&keywords=seam+sealant+tent

William.

p.s. If we find a big nugget we are not coming back....so I have been told....

 

2

Too late for that :)... Lexel is on... I will keep an eye on it, but after some rain it's bone dry inside and the Lexel seems to have bonded really well to the vinyl.  Fingers crossed... worst case scenario I will have a new vinyl cover made up (but hopefully it won't come to that as I would hate to have wasted the cash on the Sky shed cover!).

The cover is vital for me - There is no way of keeping the inside of my POD dry without one.  But with the cover now working I don't mind as it's a few seconds to put it on.  It will always go on after a night observing. 

Very excited now... I've added a membrane under the floor, relaid it and now bolted the POD down to the decking, plus installed the pier.  Next stop is the leccy - a Kendrick Power Panel is on the way and I've got my 12v supply, so when the electric is in, I am pretty much good to go. (Oh except a frost heater and dehumidifier... it never ends !)

Sounds like you are enjoying your trip!