Materials for Building a Bat House

Series Summary

Bat species make up one fourth of the mammal species on the planet, with over 1000 identified by biologists. Bats receive a bad reputation from grossly exaggerated stories of rabies and blood-sucking. Mexico hosts the world's most diverse bat population with over 150 species, only three of which feed on blood. Bats are a great alternative to pesticides, with large colonies of bats like those in Austin, TX eating over 20,000 pounds of insects during each feeding. Though facing habitat destruction with advancing human habitation, bats' most prevalent danger is intentional vandalism and eradication. Work is being done internationally to help urban and wild bat populations by educating people about the real nature of bats, their benefits to humans, and their interest to scientists.

In this free bat house video series, engineer Brian Foster teaches you how to build a bat house. Hosting your own bats is easy, and just watch how quickly your mosquitoes dwindle. Brian shows you how to make a bat house from scratch, cutting the wood on a table saw and measuring out the panels. Build you own bat house with mesh to help the bats climb, an angled roof to safeguard against weather, and a base plate to keep predators from the roost. You will also learn to assemble a very popular bat house design in case you buy one from a store or bat conservation website.

Video Transcript

"In this step, we will be describing the materials required to build the bat house. They include a staple gun, 1/4 inch staples, a drill, drill bits, galvanized screws, a plastic mesh, a measuring tape, screwdrivers, a caulk gun, and exterior grade caulk. We will also be cutting the material, the wood, on a table saw. Our materials will include a half inch piece of exterior grade hardwood for the front and back, and a 3/4 inch piece of exterior grade plywood for the sides. Those are the materials required to build a bat house."