Indian Stevenson screens

There are many offers at alluring prices of screens, made in India, on eBay, typically about $250, postage included. I’m a little tempted to take the risk with PayPal guarantees. However, the details are lacking. I enquired and am told: ‘The internal dimension of it in inch are 9x17x15 and external size in inch is 12x20.5x26. Outer box size is 17.5x22.5x27.’ The guy who replied didn’t understand what double louvres were but the difference in internal/external dimensions suggest that it may have them. I’ve asked for confirmation.

Has anyone tried them?

Amazon price for Labgo brand (best quality Indian wood!) here is


SScreen.JPG

Lowest cost Stevenson on US ebay is $399, also Labgo from India. $437 on Amazon also shipped from India.

AFAIK, the new Met Office screens are now made of plastic for durability/low maintenance and the internal louvres black to help stop reflections through them affecting the instruments.

Edit: Something like this? MetSpec Stevenson Screen from Weather Shop | Weather Shop UK

Makes sense. . . it’ll certainly save on the repainting!

I’ve been having doubts about the Labgo screens; I don’t seem to get any assurance they are double-louvered. This set me off to look farther and I found the Indian spec, which seems to correspond to the (old?) UK one, IS 5948: Thermometer Screens : Bureau of Indian Standards : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive . From this, I found:

2. DESCRIPTION

2.1 The screen is a rectangular wooden box provided with a door in front.
All the four sides are double louvred, the roof is double and the floor
consists of overlapping boards separated by an air space. The front door
is hinged at the bottom and provided with two brass chains so that it comes
to rest in an approximately horizontal position when opened to its full
extent. The screen itself is supported on four legs. A wooden framework
on which the thermometers are mounted is firmly fixed in position inside
the screen. This frame is optional in the case of large screen.

  1. TYPES

3.1 The thermometer screens shall be of the following two types;

a) Small, for the four meteorological thermometers; and

b) Large, for the thermograph and hygrograph in addition to the four
thermometers where required,

  1. MATERIAL

4.1 The screen shall be constructed from seasoned teak or deodar wood.
All the wooden parts, except those which form the louvres, shall be put
together with tenons, mortices and brass screws and strengthened at places
with steel, preferably galvanized strips fixed with bolts or screws.

  1. DIMENSIONS

5.1 The clear internal dimensions of the screen measured between the
inner slats of the louvres on opposite sides and between the middle of the
lower roof and floor shall be as follows {see Fig. 1 and 2):

Small Screen Large Screen

Length ( between inner slats 560 mm 1 325 mm

of louvres )
Breadth (between inner slats 315 mm 315 mm

of louvres )
Height (between middle of lower 412 mm 412 mm

roof and floor )

I then searched for conforming screens and found three as per attachments. The prices are attractive but transport/import costs should be added.


stevenson1.docx (224 KB)

stevenson2.docx (280 KB)

Exactly like that! Met Office tells me they’ve been in use for about 15 years (just shows how long it is since I looked inside one) and pointed me to a paper in International Journal of Climatology, 27, 267-76 (2007) which can be found here: search for “plastic thermometer screen”.

I’ve looked at probably a dozen Indian websites offering proper* Stevenson boxes (unlike the Labgo ones, for which I’ve not found specs). Some of them are serious at prices varying from USD 125 to USD 175, all very tempting. BIG HOWEVER, I could not find a means of getting them from India to Cyprus. The cheapest was EUR 290 (USD 342), going up to USD 480! This would bring the overall cost beyond my means so, regretfully, the cheap Indian screens are too expensive :frowning:

  • proper = to standards similar to the old UK Met Office

That’s a shame. But at least you’ll be spared the repainting! (Every 2 years here, I think, but probably more with the temps you get?)