Installer won't mount dish on the roof

[Vcize]

My installer came the other day to set up my new service. My back yard is pretty small, and he could not find a place to mount the dish such that it would still have line of sight to all the satellites. He told me he would be unable to do the install unless I had some trees removed.

I asked him about mounting it on the roof (my neighbor has one of the old, smaller SD dishes on his roof) since it would not be blocked there and he said he didn't think it was a good idea to mount the new HD dish on the roof since "it's so big anytime you get heavy wind it's going to catch that and cause all kinds of problems" (I'm in Florida, so there will be heavy wind).

So, for now I'm without directv and I doubt I'm going to have the trees taken down since I'll be moving in about 8 months anyway, even though I really want to get Sunday Ticket.

I was telling the story to a co-worker who just moved here and he told me they mounted his dish (he gets all the mpeg4 HD channels so I'm almost positive it's the same dish) on his roof and never mentioned that it might be problematic in any way.

Should I just tell this guy to go ahead and mount the dish on my roof and ignore his reservations about doing so, or could there really be issues here? Are people mounting the new big old mpeg4 dishes on their roofs?

 

[ptuck874]

i know my bro in law got his mounted to roof (side of roof anyway) and no problems, if its done good, a roof instal can be done, but i would try to attach to "side" of roof if possible

 

[rad]

I've had two AU-9's roof installed. Just make sure that some of the screws go into a rafter and not just the plywood and that the two monopoles get installed for added support.

 

[HDinCincy]

My AU-9 has been installed on my roof for over a year with no issues. That was where the installer recommended to put it!! He put down some sort of adhesive pad and then the main mount on that. I do have two monopoles which are a MUST with this monster dish. Hope this helps.

 

[Van]

There are some things to consider with the larger size dishes.

Becuase of the size they do catch the wind more and it does put more of a strain on the mounting location wich is why both direct and dish have support struts made for these larger dishes to be used for wall mounts and roof mounts. That being said even with the struts being used there can still be damage caused by wind if the mounts are not installed correctly into roof studs and if the lag bolts arent sealed during the mounting process to prevent water from getting into the support materal.

Its very possible that the install company that the tech works for wont allow for roof mounts wich isnt that uncommon anymore specialy if your getting dishnetwork, when I worked for them they wouldnt allow us to do roof mounts with superdishes after a while wich lead to many of them going onto poles in yards. Its also possible that the installer didnt want to do your install because he either had a large workload or your house would have presented alot more work than he was able to do and still make a money and get to his other jobs. Also without knowing what kind of roof you have its hard to tell but if you have one of the tile roofs thats common to south Florida that right there presents a whole new issue unto itsself. Its considerably easier to mount a dish to a shingled roof than one of the tiled roofs and I only ever saw one done that way when I worked in Miami, the rest were custom under eave mounts and wall mounts or post mounts.

 

[charper1]

I know plenty of very windy places that have roof mounted 5-LNB dishes and ZERO issues.. If their company has a rule then find a way to DIY.

 

[Vcize]

Also without knowing what kind of roof you have its hard to tell but if you have one of the tile roofs thats common to south Florida that right there presents a whole new issue unto itsself. Its considerably easier to mount a dish to a shingled roof than one of the tiled roofs and I only ever saw one done that way when I worked in Miami, the rest were custom under eave mounts and wall mounts or post mounts.

It is a shingled roof.

 

[Jimbo]

I would use a roof mount as a last resort, but it can be done as many others have mentioned. Make sure you get the monopoles placed.
When you call back, you will get a different guy out there anyways, see what he thinks of all possible areas, one persons idea of an area unable could possibly be oK for another guy, just depends on how far the guy wants to go with it.

Sometimes it can be done, sometimes not.

 

[Van]

I know plenty of very windy places that have roof mounted 5-LNB dishes and ZERO issues..

I do to and have done many super dishes in the past on roofs that are still there so far as I know but dish did at one time have a policy of not doing roof mounts of superdishes about 2 years after they came out because of installers not getting them in right ( not sure if it was inhouse or sub or both ) and them getting pulled off in strong winds and doing damage. Regardless of what company it is though its up to the installer to put any dish in right wich is a problem across both companies.

 

[McVey]

I had the at9 (huge dish) installed on my roof 1 yr ago with no monopoles and have had 0 problems..

 

[randyk47]

Installers are all over the map on this stuff. Mastec has the local market here in San Antonio and their installer clearly and repeatedly said they are told to install on roof over non-occupied area of the house. I didn't want him to do that and coupled with other problems with the install he left. I got a private installer to do a reinforced fascia install and had DirecTV come out again to install new receivers. Different installer this time and he wanted to check out the dish before he installed the receivers. Stood right there and said "Wow. We did a great job!" I explained how it actually got installed and he said he'd done it the way I had it done and didn't understand what the first kid was saying about "roofs only". Go figure.