How To

How to Build a Bat House in Your Backyard

Contributor
By eHow Contributing Writer
(29 Ratings)

Building a backyard bat house is fun, easy and ecological. Bats eat mosquitoes, moths and other insects and pollinate some flowers. Encourage them to populate your yard by building a bat house out of materials you have at hand, then watch them fly out at dusk to hunt for food.

Difficulty: Easy
Instructions

Things You'll Need:

  • Scrap cedar or exterior plywood (not treated)
  • Wood screws
  • Caulking
  • Dark stain or paint
  • Old pantyhose or netting
  • Staple gun
  • Hammer and large nail
  1. Step 1

    Screw together scrap wood pieces to make two walls 24 inches high and 13 inches wide. Screw together two side walls 24 inches high and 3 inches wide.

  2. Step 2

    Hammer holes in the large walls about 6 inches from the bottom of the house using the large nail. These allow air to circulate within the house.

  3. Step 3

    Staple pantyhose material to the wider walls, reinforcing about every 2 inches up the sides of the house. The material provides a perch from which bats can hang in the house.

  4. Step 4

    Assemble the four sides by screwing them together, then caulking. Next, lay the walls aside while you build the roof. Assemble two roof pieces 8 inches by 15 inches. Screw together at a 30-degree angle, then screw and caulk to walls.

  5. Step 5

    Paint the outside of the house a dark color. Nail the house 15 to 20 feet from the ground on a tree, pole or house. The opening in the bottom is the door for bats, who fly in to sleep during the day.

Tips & Warnings
  • Equip your child with binoculars to observe wildlife in your trees.

Comments  

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on 7/25/2009 Thank you for a timely, extremely informative article. I'll be putting my husband and our 10-year-old grandson to work right away!

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