How I Actually Got My BaZi (Four Pillars of Destiny) Chart Right
Why I Wanted to Get This Right
I’ve always been intrigued by Chinese astrology—especially BaZi (Four Pillars of Destiny), which goes way deeper than just being a Tiger or a Rabbit. It dives into elemental balances, your Day Master, and life phases that shift every ten years.
But here’s the catch: even small errors in your birth time can completely change your chart.
That’s why I went out of my way to get mine as accurate as possible. I didn’t just plug my info into one website. I calculated my Total Solar Time (TST) and cross-referenced my chart across five reputable sites, comparing both the pillar results and elemental breakdowns. This guide is for anyone who wants to do the same.
Step 1: Understand What Time You Actually Need
Most people just enter their local clock time into BaZi calculators, which can create major errors—especially if you were born close to a solar term change or on the border of two hour pillars.
Instead, you need your Total Solar Time (also called Real Solar Time). That means accounting for:
Your exact birth location’s longitude
Any Daylight Saving Time in effect
The difference between standard time and solar time
Use these tools to get your correct birth time relative to GMT:
For example, for my sibling born in England in the 80s, it was important to know that British Summer Time didn’t end until after their birthday in October. So their time zone was GMT+1 or UTC+1. (p.s. Not every country observes summer time.)
Once you have your birth time relative to GMT, calculate your Total Solar Time:
This gives you your true birth time in solar terms—what BaZi is based on.
Step 2: Generate Your Chart Using Accurate Sites
Here are the five I used—and how to get the most out of each:
Calculates Total Solar Time (TST) for you. Double-check it against your manual calculation for accuracy.
2. Master Sean Chan's BaZi Calculator
Enter your local time first to get TST, then re-enter using TST as your birth time and set the time zone to UTC+0. (Or just do this step using your pre-calculated solar time.)
Input your corrected TST directly.
Same—use your corrected TST.
Also input your corrected TST.
This site gives elemental scores in points. To convert to percentages:
Add up the total points & Divide each element’s points by the total.
Step 3: Compile and compare Results
Once you have your chart from each site:
Confirm that all pillar structures (Year, Month, Day, Hour) match across all sites
Compare elemental percentages (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water)
Take note of any outliers and consider excluding them
I averaged the five sets of elemental percentages to get a balanced view of my element makeup. Keep in mind:
A perfectly balanced chart would be 20% of each element
You can use this to assess which elements are high, low, or missing
Why the Elemental Percentages Differ
Even with the same chart structure, elemental percentages may vary across sites because:
Some sites weigh hidden stems differently
Some count your Day Master in the element tally, some don’t
Algorithm differences in interpreting the branch-stem structure
These variations are normal. That’s why averaging can be useful for a broader picture.
final thoughts
Your elemental breakdown represents your energetic blueprint at birth. It shows your nature, tendencies, and strengths. You might notice that the elemental makeup of today’s chart is completely different from your birth chart.
I put all of my findings into Excel tables to compare them side by side. Once you have your charts and a confident read on your elements, you’ll be able to dive deeper into the meanings and patterns—knowing that your foundation is actually you.
There’s nothing worse than putting in the effort only to realize later that you were working off the wrong chart.
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