wood for Bat houses

[goaway]

Has anyone used old pallets for building bat houses? Nice seasoned stuff. Yes a metal scanner is required for usings this wood. Not picked one out yet.

[Leon]

Typically old pallets have been set down and slid every where. They can be loaded with small rocks and sand. Don't send it through your jointer or planer. Nails and staples are only 1/3 of your worries.

[goaway]

Leon, Thanks for the warning. But for these critters, they want a rough surface to cling to. Will likely join the edges with tongue and grove approach done on a TS. Fancy is not needed. Still doing research on proper dimensions for the bats near me. Seems there are two type of bat houses in general. One for the males and a larger one for the females with young. The highest criteria seems to be light tight with very rough interiors.

BTW We have LOTS of mosquitoes her on Long Island, but not enough bats

[Lew Hodgett]

Sounds like a great place to use a belt sander and 24 grit belts.

Used this approach extensively to prep plywood before laminating knitted fiberglass and epoxy to the plywood.

BTW, 24 grit eats nails and other stuff you may find in pallet material.

Lew

[Morris Dovey]

| BTW We have LOTS of mosquitoes her on Long Island, but not enough | bats

As Long Island bats reach a certain age, they migrate in large numbers southward along the Atlantic coast toward a region in Florida bounded on the north by Ft Lauderdale and on the south by Miami. I understand that in their pre-migration stage, they tend to develop bluish hair and fat ankles...

...while the mosquitos, lacking migratory instincts and the robustness required for extended flight, remain behind.

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

[Wade Lippman]

My understanding is that bats will not tolerate a finish of any kind. So cedar is the recommended wood, as your pallets will not last too long.

Last year I built a dozen bat houses out of recycled (ie. found in the trash) cedar, but never got around to using them when I found out they had to be put on poles! Bats will not nest in boxes put on houses or trees.

I used an angle grinder to roughen the wood. Naturally you can't attract the bats to someplace they wouldn't ordinarily live, so if you don't have bats now, they may not go for your houses.

[Mike Berger]

[dpb]

How could/can you tell???

--

[Unquestionably Confused]

Dammit! You owe me a keyboard. Mine just got ruined with a spew of Miller Genuine Draft. LOL!

[Charlie Self]

Most likely the smell. Around here, a lot of the pallets also get chemical spills. I wouldn't use the wood for much of anything that's liable to come in contact with living things.

[dpb]

Guess it depends on what and where, but seems mostly overly conservative to me...ymmv, obviously...

[Buddy Matlosz]

Depends on how many batrooms they have.

B.

[henry]

I have just built a couple out of cedar and was going to attach them to trees untill I read the above. I thought trees were okay if it was open around the tree and lower limbs are cut off. I need a site that talks about whats needed such as height etc.Any recommendations?

[Puckdropper]

"Buddy Matlosz" wrote in news:3JXhi.998$ [e-mail]:

*snip*

Weren't they also known as "outhouses" before indoor plumbing? (Or were the outhouses known as "snake houses"? Ever been to Outback Snake House?)

Puckdropper

[dicko]

The important spec is temperature. The bats like it quite warm. A position that gets morning sun to give a quick warm up after cooling down all night is most ideal. Thats why trees arent recommended, their branches shield the house from the sun, limiting the inside temperature.

At northern latitudes its recommended the house be painted black, to maximize solar gain, at mid latitudes, a neutral color is recommended and at southern latitudes, the house may even need to be painted white to keep from over heating.

The recommended height is 15 to 20 ft.

Now having said all this, 6 years ago I built a bat house, insulated it, put it on a utility pole facing south, painted black, 20 ft up, and I've never had a bat move in, just wasps.

Try this web site, Bat Conservation International.

[Nova]

[goaway]

I did some "googling" on insectside and pallets. In the limited cases where the pallet is used to transport goods into the USA and bug contamination is suspected, then there is a chance of the use of insecticide. The ONLY approved pest removal for pallets is temperature. Check the site for pallet manufacturers on this. While this does not eliminate the possibility someone sprayed a pallet with something. Caution should always be used

[Robatoy]

I'll ask my ex what kind of wood panelling was in her bedroom when she grew up as child. . . . . . (sometimes Rob can't help himself and goes after the low hanging fruit....)

[Andy Dingley]

Here in the UK, pallets are junkwood. You can use them for birdboxes, but not much else.

Or using a saw / sawblade that doesn't care. It's not stuff you need to run through a planer -- the wood quality just isn't that good.

IMHE with bathouses (don't ask, it was painful) you need a tablesaw jig for grooving the inner "rungs" quickly. The right spacing is apparently important for some species of bat, especially when your customer is asking you for 500 of them at _exactly_ the right spacing.

[George]

What accumulates under the bathouse is called guano, and is fairly abundant. Keep at a distance from small children and clean up once in a while.

Strange how we get our knickers twisted over insecticide when more dangerous stuff is right under our noses....