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Ben
Member
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Posted: Wed Apr 9th, 2008 04:40 pm |
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There's my baby! all fancy painted and weather proofed, 36 inches wide about 50 inches Tall, and 7 inch thick, pretty heavy gal too! It has 4 chambers inside with 3/4 inch between them. Does anyone have ideas, suggestions feedback on how I should mount this bat house....
All caulked up , & ready for Paint and Varnish. Notice no ventilation!?! Because our average temperature for July up here is 75 Deg F. I will test Temperature variations and see if vents need to be added. BCI's litterature suggest to start it off without vents ( & further expiriment) because of out canadian climate.
Underside view of the 4 chambers, before sides & roof being added.
Interior chamber view with 1 1/2 passage holes to allow bat to move from chamber to chamber...
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cloudman75
Member
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Posted: Wed Apr 9th, 2008 10:13 pm |
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Ben,
It is a great looking house of good size. From what I have read the paint or varnish should be latex or water based stain. I was wondering about the varnish you mentioned. Good luck when you get it up.
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Ben
Member
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Posted: Wed Apr 9th, 2008 11:04 pm |
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Thanks Cloudman75, Re: The Paint; I applied a regular interior latex based paint which I happened to have on hand. Varnish wise; We just completed a log home and I happened to have leftover high quality non-toxic latex based satin clear exterior varnish (pricey too!!!) and decided if it's good enough for me & my house, it's good for the bat house.
To apply your own bat "logo", the trick is to print it on regular paper with a colour printer trim the paper as desired and paste it with "podge" (looks like white carpenter glue -dries clear, non-toxic and available at most educational toy/art stores) before the 2 varnish coats (so that the sheen is the same and your pasted paper logo is weather proofed).
The interior of the bat house has been left unfinished bare wood.
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IowaNate
Member
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Posted: Thu Apr 10th, 2008 01:39 am |
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Nice looking bat house Ben! I am curious to know what type of footholds you have on the partitions, but I did notice the saw-kerfed landing pad and back. Due to the extreme length of this house, I think you could put a ventialtion slot in the front 6" from the bottom and not have to worry about being too cool. Then again you can always add that as you said but it could be a pain if it is hung.
I made a earlier post about asthetically pleasing bat house designs, and this house looks great from a human point of view. The bat house looks like it should be very attractive to little brown bats as well!
As for hanging that monster (I am guessing it weighs more than 60 pounds), I am thinking that two 1x4's screwed to the back and extending a few inches above the roof and attaching it to some sort of building would be best. And this will create an additional roosting space behind the house itself if mounted to a rough wooden or concrete building. Pole mounting would be feasible if you attach one long 1x4 to the back of the house in the middle. Just be careful no screws protrude into the rear crevice.
If hung as per BCI's recommedations, I think your house should be easily capable of housing at least 1000 bats.
Let us know when you get it mounted!
Nate
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cloudman75
Member
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Posted: Thu Apr 10th, 2008 05:31 am |
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If you mount it on a metal pole, you could make a plywood backplate, bolt it to the pole. Then screw the backplate to the bat house back with several screws with a length so as not to penetrate inside the bathouse. The same would work for a wooden pole or 4x4. I know from experience it will be heavy to handle on a ladder. My next one I think will have a pivot at ground level and a winch to pull it to a vertical position. I will probably use a 20 ft and a 10 ft pole to mount the winch on.
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Joe Spencer
Administrator
| Joined: | Mon Feb 11th, 2002 |
| Location: | Massachusetts USA |
| Posts: | 522 |
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Posted: Sat Apr 12th, 2008 02:29 am |
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Very nice Ben. Looking forward to any photos you can supply after it is up! 
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Ben
Member
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Posted: Sat Apr 12th, 2008 12:04 pm |
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Thanks Guys, those are all very good suggestions, I'll have to ponder on those very soon, we still have snow on the ground here and it should be gone by next week. Hopefully I'll have time to wander to the harware store & check out my options. I'll post some pics once I get "big Bertha" up.
You're right Nate, a ventilation slot will be a pain to add after it's up. Thanks for the advice, I will certainly consider it.
Cheers all.
Ben
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Joe Spencer
Administrator
| Joined: | Mon Feb 11th, 2002 |
| Location: | Massachusetts USA |
| Posts: | 522 |
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Posted: Sat Apr 12th, 2008 03:36 pm |
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Ben, your photos show your dividers/baffles as being quite thin. If they are it might be wise to add one stick in the center support between each baffle to prevent warping. This is only needed on bat houses which are large and wide. Also on the next bat house you build you may wish to consider creating the bat house in two pieces or sections. One piece would be the outer shell and the other would be the internal divider/chamber section which you would then slide into the bat house after raising and securing the outer shell first. Essentially it halves the weight of the erecting procedure and additionally allows one to clean out a bat house or its chamber of any paper wasp nests etc. or easily make any internal changes, repairs or modifications in the future. 
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