How Do I Take the Right Compass Reading?

There are many basic questions about how to read a compass for feng shui: Should you take a reading at the front door and the back door? Should the door be closed or open? Do you need a magnetic north or geographic north? Can you use a regular compass? All of these are good (and common) questions, and the answers will help you take an accurate compass reading of your front door, which gives you the feng shui direction of your house. You can use the home’s direction when creating a feng shui diagram and as a guide for decorating the front door and many other feng shui improvements. 

Front Door or Back Door?

For feng shui purposes, you need only the compass reading of your front door, not your back door. The front door is where the energy nourishment, or Chi, enters the home. The back door is a consideration when placing feng shui cures or furniture inside the home, but this is not related to the door’s compass direction.

When measuring compass direction, use the original front door, or main entry, of the home. Do not use a secondary entry, such as a side door or garage service door, even if that’s the door you go in and out of most often.

Where to Take Compass Readings

To get the most accurate feng shui compass direction, you need to take several readings. This is because your compass readings may vary due to the interference of electromagnetic fields. If there is a strong presence of iron or steel objects close to you, such as in the main door hardware, or if you are wearing a metal watch, belt, or jewelry, this can distort the compass reading. Therefore, it is best to remove your watch, belt, and jewelry and to move away from the front door to ensure more accurate results.

To help compensate for unavoidable discrepancies in compass readings, it’s also best to take readings in a few different locations, then calculate an average of the compass directions. Take the first reading while inside the home looking out, facing directly through the front door. Take another reading while standing inside the door, again facing straight out, as though your body is the front door. Take a few more readings from inside and outside the house, always facing the same direction as the front door.

Calculate the average reading by adding up all of the readings then dividing by the total number of readings. For example, if you took five readings (32 degrees, 35 degrees, 37 degrees, 32 degrees, and 34 degrees), the average would be: 32 + 35 + 37 + 32 + 34 = 170; 170 divided by 5 = 34 degrees.

Magnetic North or Geographic North?

Compasses respond to the north-south magnetic field of Earth, and a compass reading indicates magnetic north. Geographic north (also called true north), essentially is the location of the North Pole, found on maps and globes. The difference between magnetic north and geographic north depends on where you live.

But there’s an easy rule to follow: For feng shui purposes, you need to know only the magnetic north, or compass reading, of your front door. There is no need to adjust your reading for the geographic north.

Which Type of Compass to Use?

For a basic reading of your front door’s compass direction, it is perfectly fine to use a standard compass that gives you a degree number from 0 to 359. You can use a traditional magnetic compass to find your front door’s direction, or you can use the compass app on a smartphone.

For an accurate reading, hold the compass or phone directly in front of the center of your body, keeping your back parallel to the front door. With a traditional compass, usually, you rotate the dial to match the needle’s position, and the numbers on the dial indicate the compass direction. With a smartphone compass, you simply read the number on your phone’s screen. Note that some smartphones can be set to read geographic north (true north), so check your settings to make sure this option is turned off.

Bagua basics: locating the energy centers.

The Bagua is one of the main tools Feng Shui practitioners use to determine the regions of a home, workplace or garden. Some variations of the Bagua show the eight regions in a square grid, other versions are octagonal. 

In the Traditional or Compass school of Feng Shui, practitioners use a compass to determine the exact direction of the front door. Next, they place that compass point of the Bagua on that area of the floor plan. This can be used for the door or doorway of each room.

In the Western or BTB (Black Sect Tantric Buddhist) School of Feng Shui, practitioners use a square compass with eight areas and health in the center. The area for north on the bagua is always placed on the wall of the front door—the area of life is Career.

This method can also be used for the door or doorway of each room. Centering the Career region of the Bagua on the wall of your front door (no matter what the compass says), the other eight areas are determined based on their location relative to the home or room’s entrance.

First Step: Make a Floor Plan 

To begin the process of aligning your home or office with the feng shui bagua map, you will draw the floor plan of your home. Be sure to mark where the front door is since the front door decides which direction the bagua map is placed over your floor plan.

This floor plan will include everything that is under your roof or is a part of the foundation. This could include a garage, a patio, a porch or anything else that may be attached to your home.

Be sure to include the proper shape of your home on the paper, whether it’s L-shaped, U-shaped, T-shaped, Z-shaped, square, rectangle, round or whatever it is.

When drawing your floor plan, include any bay windows, architectural extensions and any indents or nuances to the shape. 

If you live in a two story or even a three story home or more, you will make a separate floor plan for each level. This includes the basement and the attic if they are walk-ins. If they are only crawl space, then it’s not necessary. Although if you are not using any of these levels then there is no need to feng shui them. 

You don’t have to feel as if you must feng shui all the floors at the same time. Begin with the first floor, and when it’s completed you can move on to the other floors.

The first floor is the most important floor since this is typically where the most amount of activity occurs. It is also where the qi/chi energy enters the dwelling via the front door and then meanders through-out the rest of the home. So focus on the first floor first.

Second Step: Make a Drawing of the Bagua Map

To draw the feng shui bagua map, use the same size of paper that you drew your floor plan on and make it to the same scale as your floor plan sketch. Make the map in either a square or rectangle shape, whichever is closer to the shape of your floor plan. 

The feng shui bagua map is actually an “eight sided” octagon shape. However it’s converted to a square or rectangle shape, whichever is most similar to your floor plan. This makes it easier to work with.  

Using a ruler, draw nine equal sections and label them section by section in the proper order. You can use any of the feng shui maps that are on this page to guide you.  

The easiest home to work with is one that is square or rectangle because it won’t have any missing corners, but many homes are not perfectly one of these shapes and have missing corners that must be dealt with.

Now you must determine where to place the front door when the floor plan is superimposed with the feng shui bagua map.