Well, at least something is using our bat house :)

A bird built a nest in the peak of the bat house and had some babies.

I let them be and when all of the babies were grown enough to fly away, I removed the nest.

So, whenever the bats are ready they have a nice empty mansion to roost in...

Well, it is November 29th, 2011 and still no bats. I have read that bats find new homes more in the winter than any other time of the year.

We live in Florida, so it normally does not get cold until later December.

I knew going into this that it might take years for bats to find the house, but I figured a few Christmas lights on the bat house roof will at least make me happier :)



If You Build It They Will Come (Hopefully)

From what I read, you can’t attract bats to a location using baits. When bats go out to feed on insects at night, they are also constantly looking for places to roost.

They like safe places where predators can’t get at them. Bat houses placed on metal poles high up have three times more of a chance for occupancy than ones places in trees or wood poles where squirrels and other critters can climb. They say houses should get about 6-8 hours of sunlight because bats like it about 85-100 degrees.

About all you can do is build a proper bat house and place it in a good location.  I’ll monitor it and clean out any wasp nests that gets built in it.

The University of Florida bat pavilion remained empty for several years and now there are between 100,000 to 200,000 bats living in it that eat an estimated 1,000 pounds of insects per night.

Our hope is that they will like what they see and move on in :)

The Raising

I had to decide where I wanted to place the bat house on our property...

I looked at several websites to get some ideas:
http://www.batconservation.org/drupal/where_to_hang
http://www.batcon.org/pdfs/bathouses/bathousecriteria.pdf

I went outside after it was very dark and walked around our property to see where the darkest spot would be.  I also looked to make sure trees were not too close where squirrels and other critters could leap onto the house.

The two windows by the house are always covered at night with a dark shade, so no light is coming from our house on that side.

Once I found the spot, I dug two 4 foot deep holes using a post hole digger.   I used 8 inch cardboard concrete forms that were 4 feet in length.

At first I thought 2 inch PVC pipes would work, but after construction and ending up with a 50 - 70 pound bat house I knew they would not work.   I purchased two 2 inch 15 foot galvanized pipes.   I did not want this thing to wobble in the wind!!

I purchased five 80 pound bags of concrete and only used four.

IMPORTANT NOTE!!   (This was totally my father's idea)  You must make sure the poles line up very close with the end PVC pipe holders attached to the bat house.  To do this, I measured the distance between the to end PVC pipe holders on the house.  I then took a 2x4 board and cut two holes into them using the same distance as the previous measurement.  I placed two short pieces of 2 inch PVC pipe into the holes of the 2x4.   I used this 2x4 to put into the top of the galvanized poles to know that the distance between was correct.

While pouring the concrete into the concrete form tubes my father held the galvanized pipe in place and made sure it was level.  After pouring the second tube, I climbed on a ladder and placed a level on the 2x4 going from one pipe to the other to make sure it was level.  Once everthing looked good, I let the concrete set for several days.


We used a threader to make three holes into each of the 3 inch PVC pipes at the ends of the bat house.  We then partly screwed three bolts into the holes.  These will be tightened once we place the house on the poles.  2 inch galvanized pole into a 3 inch PVC pipe would have left too much wiggle room.

Now the tricky part...

My father and brother helped me with this.   We had two tall step ladders beside each pole and we walked the bat house up each side and lifted it over the top of the poles and set it into the 3 inch PVC pipe holders on the end of the house.  I almost dropped my end, but caught it at the last second...

Once we had it set in place, we just tightened the bolts and all is finished!

Building the Bat House

I decided to work with Rough Cedar wood.  It does not rot and the bats like the roughness of the wood.  Using cedar did make the cost of the project go higher, but I decided that I would rather make it right than make it cheap.


My initial thoughts were to overlap the boards like I saw in the picture (see last post).  When I went to Lowes to purchase everything I noticed they had tongue and groove 8 inch cedar planks.  That make building the box much easier!


Since the cedar planks came in 8 foot boards, I decided to go for a 4 x 2 x 2 foot house.  The bodies of the bats around us are about 2-3 inches in size, so if I did my math right (length x width x height) that should come to 27,648 cubic inches of space for the bats.  That is not including the space within the peaked roof.

When I put the box together, I glued the tongue and groove boards together and used metal strapping on the inside to make it more secure.

The 3'' PVC pipes with a cap glued on are where the poles will be inserted. I could not find 3'' pipe clamps, so I made my own out of the same metal strapping I used on the inside.

MISTAKE I MADE:  I put metal strapping on the ends on the inside BEFORE I put on the 3 inch PVC pipe pole holders on.  Wrong!   I ended up hitting the inside metal straps about 10 times.  So, outside pole holders first, inside end braces second...

As to where the bats would hang from, I decided to make 7 panels (about 3 inches apart from each other).  I uses 1 x 2 cedar trim boards to make a frame and then stapled on 1/2 inch plastic mesh onto the frames.   I ended up just screwing the frames in from the sides.

The roof is still the cedar  tongue and groove boards.  I overlapped them a bit to allow for rain to run off.  I roofed it with two layers.  The first layer is a peal and stick tight seal window flashing.  The second layer was peal and stick asphalt shingles.  Both of these came in rolls, so all I had to do was measure, cut, and lay it down.

MISTAKE I MADE: I started at the peak at the top instead of the bottom.  I had only one row down across the peak before I noticed my mistake, so the top had an extra layer over it.

Even though it was peal and stick shingles, I did use roofing nails just to make sure they weren't going anywhere in a wind storm.

The roof is connected to the box with just four pieces of metal strapping in the ends.  This way if I have to remove the top for some reason all I have to do is unscrew 8 screws and lift it off.

I found a cool bat design online, printed it off, and cut it out for my stencile.  My daughter placed the stencil on the side and covered all the rest of the area with tape and garbage bags.  She sprayed on the black paint and voila!  The real bat cave construction is done.  Getting it in the air is next...

Researching About Bat Houses

We have so many mosquitoes here in Florida that I would have to spend a fortune on bug zappers to make a modest dent in the swarms. So, I decided to look into building a bat house.

I had built a very small bat house before and placed it on our telephone pole. Within a year the only thing in it was a ton of wasp nests, so I removed it.

This time I wanted to do it right (or at least much better!)

I did a lot of research on how to build a bat house and where you should place it for best results.

Bat houses placed on metal poles high up have three times more of a chance for occupancy than ones places in trees or wood poles where squirrels and other critters can climb. They say houses should get about 6-8 hours of sunlight because bats like it about 85-100 degrees.

The coolest and largest bat house (pavilion) in the country was built and is mantained by the University of Florida (where I went to school for a year and a half) - GO GATORS!!

You can read about it at:
http://www.wec.ufl.edu/extension/wildlife_info/wildlife_uf/bathouse.php

The one design I like the best I gleaned from the following website:
http://www.batconservation.org/drupal/free_plans

I liked the simplicity of it, the size of it, and that the poles for the house were on the outside instead of the inside.

I didn't purchase any plans.  I only had a picture to work with...