What Type Screws Are Best for Bat Houses

Build a Bat House

Photos and story past Carla Chocolate-brown

I love bats because mosquitoes LOVE to bite me. Pesticides can be harmful to mosquitoes' predators as well as mosquitoes. According to Bat Conservation International, one little brown bat can swallow 60 medium-sized moths or over 1,000 mosquito-sized insects in one night!

Bats are also interesting because:

• In many ecosystems, they play a key role in pollinating plants.
• In that location are more than 1,300 species of bats in the earth!
• Some bats use echolocation, or high pitched chirps which bounce off objects in front of them, to find their style in the dark.

Before I share my bat house building feel, let me say that I am no carpenter. This was my first time using a circular saw. Hopefully this can assistance even the to the lowest degree handy person build a bat house.

Why Build a Bat House?

You might exist surprised: bats don't always alive in caves. Some bats spend wintertime months in caves, but nigh bats spend summers in trees, nether bridges or in old buildings, where they requite birth and rear young.

Your goal is to brand a bat firm that mimics the infinite between bark and a tree trunk. That would exist the bats' ideal nursery. That's why the space inside a bat house is very narrow, unlike a bird house which would house a nest. Bats like tight spaces. They likewise need information technology nice and warm for the babies. That's why we paint the box a nighttime color in well-nigh climates and why nosotros caulk the sides to keep the heat in. Also, you'll be using a saw to rough upward inside the box. That makes information technology more like tree bark and easier for the bats to climb up.

Yous might wonder why you need to build a bat house. Why can't the bats just find a prissy tree? That is the challenge for many bat species as forests are cleared. Ideally they would alive in a natural home but we build bat houses to help those who can't find space in a forest.

A bat house is besides is a great way to provide cover for wild animals, too equally a place for wild animals to heighten young--2 components of becoming a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat site.

How to Build a Bat House

First I printed a bat house construction plan from Bat Conservation International's website. (They too have a Bat Firm Builder's Handbook available for gratis in a digital version on their bat business firm pages.) The big surprise was that this bat firm concluded up being bigger than I expected: two feet wide and almost 3 feet alpine! According to their website, a successful bat house can be smaller (fourteen inches broad instead of 24 inches broad), only this one was designed to hands utilize up a 2 foot by 4 foot piece of plywood with fewer cuts.

That was not how I had pictured a bat house. Have you always seen bat houses for auction that are smaller or shaped like a bird house? I take. That but means those houses were fabricated by people less acquainted with bat needs.

I read over the plan and I found that I needed a location with:

• lots of sun;
• at least 15 feet off the ground (to protect confronting predators); and
• ideally a water source nearby (and so the female parent bat doesn't take to exit her young for too long).

Interestingly, bats are less attracted to bat houses mounted on trees. There's a few reasons for this:

• It's too easy for predators to get bats as they exit
• The branches causing obstructions to exiting bats which drop downwards so up into flight
• Information technology's too shady from branches above.

Bat houses mounted on buildings retain heat better and are less accessible to predators. You tin put them on a pole though. Luckily my townhouse is three stories loftier and has a sunny side. It'south also about a stream. Then I felt I probably had a good site.

Supplies Needed to Build a Bat House

The supplies on the Bat Conservation International plan are:

• 1/4 sail ( 2' ten 4' ) 1/two" AC, BC, or T1-11 (outdoor grade) plywood. DO NOT use force per unit area treated wood.
• 1 slice 1" x 2" (3/4" 10 ane 1/2" finished) x 8' pino
• 20-thirty 1 i/4" coated deck or outside-grade Phillips screws
• One pint nighttime, water-based stain, exterior-form
• One pint water-based primer, exterior-grade
• One quart flat water-based paint or stain, exterior-grade
• One tube paintable latex caulk
• 1" x 3" x 28" board for roof (optional, but highly recommended)
• Black asphalt shingles or galvanized metal (optional)
• six-x 7/8" roofing nails (optional)

Tools Needed to Build a Bat House

• Table saw or handsaw
• Caulking gun
• Variable speed reversing drill
• Paintbrushes
• Phillips flake for drill
• Tape measure or yardstick
• Scissors (optional)
• Staple gun (optional)

For those of you who practice not ordinarily buy forest, here are some tips:

• Try to purchase Forest Stewardship Council certified forest and/or recycle scrap woods.
• When you purchase a piece of wood that is advertised as 1 inch by ii inches, information technology is non actually that big when y'all measure out it. Information technology's more like iii/4 inch by 1 1/2 inches. That was important for me to know because it allowed me to utilise scrap wood for office of the project.

The supply list in the bat firm plan was very helpful, just I would add together:

• Two clamps for clamping wood while y'all saw or drill
• Prophylactic glasses for when y'all use power tools
• A modest broom for sweeping sawdust

Too, the bat firm plan calls for paint. I didn't know what colour and initially I thought white to lucifer my house trim. Just then I checked their website and they have a map where y'all look up what color to paint your bat business firm. For my area, I demand nighttime brown or gray.

Edifice the House

Step 1: Wood Cutting (30 minutes)

Measure and mark where you demand to cut the forest according to the program. Clamp it downward to a sturdy spot for safety. You cannot safely concur the wood and the circular saw. Conform the blade to the correct depth depending on the width of your wood. It takes only five cuts. Don't forget your safety spectacles.

At this point, I took the woods and laid information technology together to get a sense of how this was going to look. Yous'll run into that the bottom slice is the biggest. The 1X2 inch pieces form the sides of the bat firm and and so there are 2 smaller pieces of plywood on top. The gap between those 2 is a ventilation slot.

Stride 2: Putting grooves on the back piece (2 hours)

This was the nearly difficult part of making the bat house, but information technology's the most important. The goal is accept the plywood, which is very smooth, and roughen it up to provide places for the bat to crawl up into the house. The instructions said that you tin can practise this by cutting grooves into the wood. Another pick is to find sturdy plastic mesh and staple information technology along the backboard. I chose to cut grooves because I think information technology will wait better and too if I was a bat looking for a tree, I might not exist attracted to a lot of plastic. Simply both options apparently piece of work.

The instructions say that the grooves need to be nigh a one-half inch autonomously, so I measured and marked where I thought the grooves should go.

When it came time to cutting the grooves, what I found challenging was that I didn't know what blazon of tool to apply.

Since at offset I was shy virtually using the round saw, I tried to use a mitt saw. After 30 minutes and only iii grooves, I realized I would have to rely on technology.

I set the round saw to simply ane/16 of an inch, reclamped the plywood and started cutting grooves into the backboard. They were not always perfectly directly lines, but that'south not important considering trees do non accept perfectly straight grooves either.

Once I had cut grooves over the whole backboard with the circular saw, I took my hand saw and deepened some of the grooves. I did this considering I was not certain if the circular saw went securely enough and also to roughen information technology up even farther.

Step 3: Staining inside the bat business firm (1 hour)

Bats similar information technology dark inside their houses so information technology's important to stain all inside parts a nighttime color. Beginning you have to sweep all the sawdust carefully from the backboard, especially from the grooves that y'all cutting.

I chose a walnut stain considering it was the darkest one at the shop. It's important to use stain rather than paint because paint would fill up in the grooves you simply cutting. Stain simply soaks into the wood nicely.

It simply takes two coats of the stain, and the stain dries fast if you are making your bat house outside in the sun.

Step 4: Caulking and screwing on the sides (30 minutes)

If you are going to utilize plastic mesh to assist the bats climb inside your bat house, now is the time when you would staple it on. Make sure it hangs all the fashion down to the "landing pad" area and then bats have something to grab on to.

Before calculation the side pieces, utilise caulk. This seals the bat house to help keep the heat within. Baby bats need a warm home - reaching 80 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit in July.

Next yous apply your power drill to attach on the side pieces. Since these pieces are rather narrow, they tin can hands split. A way to avoid splitting is to pre-drill the holes with a drill bit that is smaller than the size of your screw. Then, when you drill in the screws, they go in much easier and your wood stays whole.

Step five: Caulking and screwing on the top pieces (thirty minutes)

Next, attach the superlative two pieces of plywood. First caulk to ensure a snug fit. And so follow the same communication for drilling and attach the larger of the two top pieces.

Before you attach the smaller of the 2 pieces, mensurate to make sure your ventilation slot is most one-half an inch.

Step 6: Caulking the sides and calculation the roof (15 minutes)

To ensure in that location are no gaps between all these pieces of wood where heat could escape, leaving our poor bats shivering in the cold, put some caulk all around the sides in any gaps that you see.

Finally, add a slice of wood to the top to form a roof.

Step vii: Priming and painting the bat house (variable given pigment drying time)

Finally, we need to ensure the bathouse lasts a long time and then we prime number and paint it. We prime it with an exterior primer that discourages the growth of any plants or mold. Hither I am applying the primer. Side by side I painted iv layers of dark pigment - in my case it was night dark-brown.

Writer's Notation: I accept to exist honest with you: I built this bat house when I had little babies, and as any immature mother knows, hanging a bat house doesn't really attain the top of the "to-do" list. So I gave the bat house to a friend at the National Wildlife Federation in the hopes information technology might get put upwards here. Unfortunately we don't know what happened to it. We looked all over, but it's now been six years and there's no sign of it. So, hither is how y'all SHOULD mount your new bat house!

Footstep 8: Mount the Bat House (20 minutes)

Bat houses should exist mounted on poles or buildings, which provide the best protection from predators. Woods or stone buildings with good solar exposure are splendid choices, and locations under the eaves oftentimes have been successful. All bat houses should be mounted at least 12 feet to a higher place footing; 15 to twenty feet is meliorate.

I hope you bask building your bat house, whether it'due south in celebration of bats at Halloween or any time of the year. Remember, once you lot put up the bat house, information technology may take a few years for a bat to find information technology. They volition come looking in the spring time, so ideally it should be hung by late winter.

---

Installing a bat business firm is a smashing way to give bats cover and a identify to raise their young. At present have your outdoor space a step further! Add food and water sources to create a habitat garden that will concenter bats and other local wildlife. Already take information technology covered? Celebrate your space by certifying today!

hilltiongens.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.nwf.org/garden-for-wildlife/cover/build-a-bat-house

Share this post