wood for Bat houses

If the wood is rough that's a big plus.

Bat houses surfaces should be rough --- so there's no need to plane the wood.

Reply to
joeljcarver
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Recent window replacement require the removal of a few siding boards which exposed several very unhappy bats. They had crawled in at some point above and made it several feet down under the siding. I left them alone and they made their way, slowly, to cover. I installed a deluxe bat-house when the window project was finished. Point is, if they nest _in_ my house, I think it'll be okay to put the bat-house _on_ my house.

Lots of bat and bat-house links with design considerations and free plans. Bats are good* and giving them a proper home may help keep them out of your attic (hey, they're good but I don't want them in my house) or belfry.

*I hate mosquitoes.
Reply to
Ron Hock

As far as i know most bats are made of ash,so lets keep it simple use ash.....mjh

Reply to
mike hide

As a matter of fact, I've used old pallets to make both bird houses and at least one bat house. I'm not sure if any bats ever used the bat house as it is tied up in a tree at the back of my yard and I've never checked it. However, we have had some birds use the bird houses, primarily house finches, and a squirrel family used on of the larger houses one year.

Most of the hard wood pallets I find appear to be made of white oak, there are also a fair number of boards made of some pale, finer-grained wood that I can't identify. It lookes something like birch.

Reply to
Larry W

You may be right about this but I have personally observed bats sleeping right on a tree limb during daylight hours, in both Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Reply to
Larry W

If they are US made, most are poplar (aspen). In northern Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan thousands are built each week. Some are maple and a few are oak. Birch is sometimes used, but the vast majority are poplar.

Doug

Say Ya to the UP EH!

Reply to
Doug Houseman

Doug Houseman wrote: ...

They must be shipping them somewhere else than here, then... :)

Don't recall _ever_ seeing a pallet of something as soft/weak as poplar. _Most_ I'm seeing any more are pretty obviously non-native species but what is, is nearly always cull-oak.

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Reply to
dpb

It's what you've got. "Popple" is pretty much worthless, so pallets are about all there is to make a nickle out of it.

Lots of soft maple and birch - mostly boxed hearts - go into the pallet skids of the tougher types, though it's not unusual to see poplar boards. Not the half-inch fast to split crap like you see with the red oak, but close to 4/4 popple. Doesn't split, and it's strong enough.

Reply to
George

I used pine because that's what was in the scrap pile at the time, plus it is lightweight. I used shingles on top. After 15 years, it's still in good shape.

Reply to
Phisherman

Andy ... what IS the correct spacing and depth?

Bill

Reply to
BillinDetroit

Around here, (Maryland) "poplar" usually means a relatively soft, straight-grained but nondescript hardwood most obvious by it's greenish tinge, Very easy to work with but not very good rot-resistance; pallets made from this poplar would not last very long outdoors. I take it the poplar-aspen you refer to is a different species. Now that I think of it, I have seen pet bedding that was made from aspen shavings and chips and it is deifinitely not the poplar I am familiar with.

Reply to
Larry W

Yeah, good catch....I somehow missed the aspen even though it's right there and thought of the southern/eastern tulip poplar even though he also mentioned WI. Aspen is definitely much more likely candidate.

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Reply to
dpb

While your bats are a bit different than what we have in Washington (the state, not the "state of mind"), see if some of the information here is of help:

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built a bunch of the "rocket box" houses - I used a 8 foot cedar

4*4 (rough) for the top section and then a 12 foot pressure treated for the lower section, bolting the two sections together with an 18" overlap. Makes it easier to transport, more resistant to rot at the bottom and cheaper. The "Rocket Box" houses are detailed here:
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have not had a chance to get back and check out the 5 we put up out at the Girl Scout camp (it was my daughters project) but we hope they moved in - they had sealed up the old barn the 400 or so bats had been using for years after parents complained about babies falling on the kids during a meeting in the barn.

mikey

Reply to
Mike Fields

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