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!