Flying Stars Feng Shui Open the app

Home › Guides › Facing direction

How to take your home’s facing direction

Last updated 9 October 2026

Stand inside your home at the front door, looking out, and hold the compass flat and level, pointing the way you are facing. The number it reads is the facing direction. It takes a minute, and it is the single measurement the whole chart is built on.

Where should you stand to take the reading?

Inside the building, at the main entrance, looking out through it. Not outside on the step looking back at the door.

This is worth saying twice, because it is the mistake that spoils most readings. Standing outside and facing the door gives a bearing 180 degrees from the right one. That is the sitting direction, the opposite of the facing direction, and it produces a chart that is wrong in every sector while looking perfectly reasonable.

If the door is recessed in a porch, stand at the threshold rather than deep inside the recess, and face the way the building faces.

How should you hold the compass?

Flat, level and pointing straight out, at about waist height. A tilted phone reads several degrees out, and a few degrees can change which of the twenty-four mountains the bearing falls in.

Step away from anything metal or magnetic: the door frame itself if it is steel, cars, fridges, speakers, underfloor heating and the hinges of the door. A metre is usually enough. Take the reading two or three times, from slightly different spots across the opening, and see whether the numbers agree. If they scatter by more than a degree or two, something nearby is pulling the needle.

Which direction is the facing direction?

For most houses it is the way the front door faces. For an apartment, practitioners differ: some take the unit’s own door, others the face of the building, or the side with the main light and view. Flying Stars uses the direction you give it, so the choice is yours to make and worth being deliberate about.

Facing and sitting are opposites. The facing direction looks out; the sitting direction is the back of the building, 180 degrees away. The chart needs the facing direction.

Why do the exact degrees matter?

A compass direction on its own is not enough. Each of the eight directions splits into three 15-degree mountains, and they produce different charts. A home facing 170 degrees and one facing 185 degrees are both “south”, and their charts are not the same.

The twenty-four mountains and the degrees that belong to each:

What if the reading sits on a boundary?

Measure again. When a bearing sits within 1.5 degrees of the line between two mountains, Flying Stars says so rather than picking one, because the two sides give different charts and the measurement is not precise enough to choose between them.

Take the reading from two or three points across the entrance and see where they settle. If they still straddle the line, the building is a genuine boundary case, and that is a question for an experienced practitioner with a proper luopan rather than for a phone.

Is a phone compass accurate enough?

For most buildings, yes, once it is calibrated and away from metal. A phone reads magnetic north, which is what a traditional luopan reads too.

What a phone is not good at is holding steady near steel and reinforced concrete, which is exactly where many front doors are. That is the reason for taking several readings rather than one, and the reason the app flags a boundary case instead of quietly rounding it.

These notes follow traditional flying star practice and describe the feel of a space. They are not medical, legal or financial advice, and they are not predictions about any particular person.

What should I read next?