Dealing With a BUD (Big Ugly Dish)

Painted BUD

July 10, 2010

We installed a 10 foot satellite dish affectionately known as a BUD short form for Big Ugly Dish.  These types of dishes were all the rage for quite awhile as they allowed those in rural areas to get rather decent television service where they couldn't via any other method.  We installed it because quite frankly the service was less than half the price of cable with a lot more channels.  In fact for a few years it was actually free via free-to-air.  Our satellite dish was one of the fancier black mesh dishes so it was not as obvious as the solid beige dishes but it was still a BUB! 

It is really difficult to camouflage a BUD because anything that blocks the dish itself actually blocks your satellite signal.  So while the BUD gives a lot of great entertainment it really is an eyesore.  The next house we moved to had a BUD, one of the ugly solid beige ones.  We had brought our black mesh one with us which was a lot more work than you would think.  We sold the black mesh one, left the beige one where it was because that would have been a huge pain to take down, and installed one of the smaller satellite dishes.  Like many we simply just left the beige BUD were it was.  These huge ugly dishes continue to in many ways pollute the skyline.  There was one here when we bought the house.  We took it down.  There is one at the neighbouring house to the house we have the conditional offer on.  They are hard to get rid of so in many ways leaving them where they are seems to be the resolution.

I've seen some rather interesting uses for old BUDs.  Golf courses use them on the driving range.  Some enterprising people have sealed or the solid BUDs or used them under pond liners to make shallow garden ponds.  Others have done as this person did, paint them up to add a bit of whimsy.  If painting you will need a tall ladder as most BUDs are 10 foot diameter and raised above the ground by at least 8 feet.  The BUD should be pressure washed first then allowed to fully dry.  Use a good quality latex outdoor paint to do the design.  If the design is complicated you will likely have to mask of certain areas.  Use a good quality paint tape.  Remove the pains as soon as possible to prevent the sun from setting the adhesive.

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