Ghosts of TV habits gone by
March 3, 2021 5:52 PM   Subscribe

I own a brick two-flat in Chicago. A previous owner, probably 10+ years ago, had satellite TV. The dish is still up on the roof, bolted to the inside of the parapet. Can I remove the dish or is there some risk I’ll harm the roof/parapet in the process? Or should I involve a professional?

The roof is in great shape, thankfully. There’s no sign the dish is loose or doing any damage, it just annoys me.

Bonus question: what does one do with these defunct satellite dishes?
posted by chimpsonfilm to Home & Garden (8 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Should be fairly easy unless they were jerks when installing it — it’s probably just expansion anchors so you’d just have to unscrew and remove (leaving the expansion jacket in there). I might also put some silicone in the holes out of paranoia.

...I mean, assuming you can get up there safely of course.

The old dishes have essentially zero value now, as almost nobody wants their service anymore. The LNB is probably electronic waste, and the dish itself can be recycled.
posted by aramaic at 6:00 PM on March 3, 2021 [1 favorite]


If the mounting arm looks something like this and the base (the rectangular part on the left) is mounted to a surface that isn't visible from the street, you could just disconnect the dish and pole and leave the base alone.

But if leaving that behind bothers you then aramaic has it. It's designed to quickly attach to something and can come off just as quickly.
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:11 PM on March 3, 2021


If the dish mounts are fixed back to the parapet with masonry anchors, you can just unscrew the anchors to remove the dish mounts. Simply screwing the anchors back into place after the dish mounts are gone should leave the structure no more susceptible to water ingress than it is already - especially if you use a liberal application of neutral-cure silicone sealant to grease the threads.

Cured silicone will break away easily if you ever need to unscrew them again to mount something else up there.
posted by flabdablet at 6:12 PM on March 3, 2021 [1 favorite]


I did this a couple years back and it was indeed as simple as removing the masonry anchors (with a cordless drill and a ratchet bit, I think it took all of 5 minutes). I took the dish to the scrapyard after a week or so of trying to come up with something crafty to do with it.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:49 PM on March 3, 2021


I just rolled up the cables and unbolted the dish from the base, leaving the base out of sight. I folded the dish up and threw it in the trash can, it was quite light and thin.
posted by agentofselection at 8:49 PM on March 3, 2021


bird bath; 2
posted by amtho at 2:09 AM on March 4, 2021


Response by poster: Thank you! It's no challenge to get up there, but this resolves my concern about damage, and I love the bird bath idea.
posted by chimpsonfilm at 1:14 PM on March 14, 2021


If you can find small mirror tiles (the kind used to make disco ball mirrors) and you line the inside of the dish with them, you can make a solar death ray. Or perhaps a cookstove if you defocus it a bit.
posted by flabdablet at 4:25 AM on March 15, 2021 [1 favorite]


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