Using the Compass

Precaution and Usage

1. We recommend that all users use an ordinary compass instead of using a Chinese Luopan to determine your main door for their home or office or university. Click here to find out quite a good compass which I find easy to use and reliable.

For the following reasons:

a. Internationally, it is easier to purchase an ordinary compass. All inputs at Geomancy.net is specific to an ordinary compass.

b. The Chinese Luopan needle and reading is South-North orientation. There maybe additional confusion as you need to understand the facing and sitting concept. The reading if done in a Luopan have to be rotated 180 degrees to match the standard North-South compass direction. Our website have the final result orientated in the standard ordinary compass direction (North-South). So using a normal compass to obtain the centerpoint will ensure that you do not make any mistake in finding your main door direction.

2. Many mordern buildings have re-enforced steel and standing too close e.g. to a column may affect the reading. Where possible stand at least 1 metre away.

Because of this it is always recommended that you test your compass for any deviation in the North direction when taken inside the house, outside the house or outside the building.

If there are deviations, you should compensate for the deviation by noting down how much the compass deviate when taken indoors as compared to outdoors. The correct reading should be taken as the one outside your home.

Determine the Type of House

Before finding out how to determine the centerpoint of the house, you should first determine the following whether you are applying Feng Shui for Interior or Exterior:-

1. For a Landed Property (ie Bungalow, Semi-Detach, Terrace house)

• Interior Feng Shui Qi of the House, you should take the facing of the house from the center of the house to the Main Door or the Living Room Frontage. All depends on the design of the House. Frankly, it is better to use the Main Door as the facing of thr Frontage may give a different direction (like the living room face East, but the main door falls in the North-East of the House).
• Exterior Feng Shui Qi of the House including the Plot of Land, you should take the facing of the house from standing at the Main Gate of your house looking outwards to the road.

2. For a Apartment / Building / Flat

• Interior Feng Shui Qi of the Entire Building, you should take the facing of the building from standing at the main entrance of the building looking outward toward the street.
• Interior Feng Shui Qi of the Individual Apartment within the Entire Building, you should take the facing of the house from the center of the house to the Main Door of your Apartment
• Exterior Feng Shui Qi of the Entire Buildinging including the Plot of Land, you should take the Building Facing direction or the entrance of the plot of land it was built on.

Here it is important to know that Flying Star can be applied on a Micro level (ie just the apartment within the entire building), or a Macro level (ie the plot of land). So depending on the situation, you should apply the correct measures.

Summary

Since we are focusing on Home owners.

1. If you are doing a Feng Shui assessment of an Apartment in the Building / Flat

Take from the Centerpoint of the house to the Main Door. This will be the facing of your home. For example, if from the center of the house to the main door it falls in the North-East. This house is a North-East facing house.

2. If you are doing a Feng Shui assessment of a Landed Property

Depending on your interior layout plan, you can choose the frontage of the house (usually by the living room view), or the main door which you enter.

We usually recommend the main door because the location of where the main door also correspond to the exact sector it falls under the house when it is divided into the 8 sectors. For example, if the main door determined from center is North-East, when you divide the house it will fall in the North-East sector of the house.

If you use the living room view facing, say of the living faces East. But your main door falls under the North-East, the flying star chart done for the house for the East sector which is supposed to be your frontage does not correspond to the exact sector where your main door lies. So analysis is done a little differently.

In this instance, it recommended, that you take the main door from the center of the house as your facing of the house even for Landed Property.

Method 1: Using the Ordinary Compass to obtain your main door direction

Use this method if you can stand at the center of the house without any wall blocking you from see the main door from the centerpoint. Otherwise, you have to use Method 2 instead.

Step 1:
Get the layout plan (check for whether it is Square or Rectange or odd shape) try to always tread your house as a Square of Rectangle with anything found outside the Square as a Protrution while anything missing within the Square as a Missing Corner.

Step 2:
Find the Centerpoint by drawing a line from the opposite corners as seen in Step 2 above.

Step 3:
Stand at the centerpoint of the house facing the door. (If you are blocked by a wall, then you have to use the next method below to obtain your centerpoint).

Step 4:
Take the reading from point A (where you were standing) to the main door. That degree you obtain will be the Main Door of your house. Or the Facing of your house.

Method 2: Using the Protractor and Ordinary Compass to obtain your main door direction

Use this method if you want to verify if you got your main door correctly from Method 1, or if you cannot stand at the center of the house (due to some wall or obstruction from letting you see the main door)

Step 1:
Find the Centerpoint of the house by drawing the two lines each from the opposite corner of the house. Make sure that your layout is more or less drawn to scale.

Step 2:
Open your main door, stand between the arch of the main door. Turn to face the side of the main door so that you can take the degree of the wall as in Step 3 (from Point A to B).

Step 3:
Take a compass reading from Point A to B. This will give you a compass reading of the Wall where your main door is located. Asumming that the degree you take is 88 Degree as in the diagram above.

Step 4:
Draw an exact line parallel to the line (A to B), so that the line you draw crosses the centerpoint as shown in the above diagram. This will give you a starting degree to work on so as to obtain the main door direction.

Step 5:
Draw a line from the centerpoint to the main door as in Point C to D.

Step 6:
Measure the angle from the line (A to B) to line (C to D) using a protector (a 180 degree protractor will work fine). Asumming that the angle measured is 120 degree.

Step 7:
Simply add 120 degree to the original degree you gotten 88 Degree from line (A to B). Thus, your main door should be 208 degree. This should be more or less the same degree if you take the reading from Method 1. Thus, this can be used to check if you got the reading correctly.

Method One: Finding the direction of an apartment / flat

Combine this method with method 2 for best results

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All Rights Reserved. Copyright Cecil Lee, 1999

1. I devised the above method as a " counter check" to confirm the accuracy of readings done using a Chinese Luo Pan. Here, instead you use a reasonably good compass i.e. it can be a surveyors' compass or hiking / ordinary compass.

2. Where possible, combine Methods 1 and 2 for best results. Preferably you need to obtain a proper layout plan (architect's plan) to scale.

3. You also need to purchase a Protractor (an instrument for measuring angles) from a stationery store. It is used at the final stage to measure the degree angle of the main door. I purchased my protractor for around US$2.50.

4. You can benefit from using the above method as you are assessing the compass directions:-

4.1. Internally using Cecil's method of checking the compass directions of North, South, East and West.

4.2. Plus take advantage of using the compass externally to align the compass to two sides of the wall of the apartment / flat.(Under Method 2 below)

5. You can simply use a compass. Click here to find out quite a good compass which I find easy to use and reliable.

6. The good news is that you do not need to use it. You can simply purchase a hiking compass and this works equally fine.

7. This method works equally well if the apartment / flat is circular in shape or have lots of missing corner. 

Method Two: Combined with Method 1 to find the direction of an apartment / flat

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This is the surveyors' method of taking a `compass' reading. I combine Method 1 with Method 2 in most of my readings.

Again, you can simply use an ordinary compass or a hiking compass.

The advantage of taking a compass reading outside the apartment / flat is that you can confirm the compass readings taken inside the apartment / flat.

The disadvantage of this system is that it may not be possible for you to take a compass reading of a circular shaped apartment / flat or if the apartment / flat has `odd' protusions.

The above readings are usually meant for apartment / flat. The centerpoint is still required for a building or landed property. As the eight house or flying star template needs to be superimposed onto the layout.

The compass  reading based on the frontage of a building/landed property

Surveyors' Method

Averaging Method