BCM Bat House Plans
BCM Bat House Plans
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Building a Better Bat House
A plan for building, assembling, installing, and maintaining a modern bat house.
Building bat houses to proper specifications, placing them in the "best" habitat, and maintaining the houses every few years will maximize the chances of a colony forming on your property. If not built and placed properly, there may not be any visitors at all.
BCM has assembled detailed plans to enable do-it-yourselfers to build their own bat house similar to the 3 chamber kits presently available in our catalog. But getting plans is just part of the project. We show step by step photographs of the assembly process and offer a chapter on selecting the right shade of paint.We describe how to look for a good installation site, and what pitfalls to watch out for. A chapter on post installs will explain how to get the 50 lb. 7- chamber bat house safely in the air. A section on maintenance includes what to do with wasps, hornets, woodpeckers, overheating problems, and how to inventory your bats. Finally, a short informative chapter on bats and rabies, histoplasmosis, what to do with guano rounds out the book.
The book contains plans for a highly successful seven chamber bat box and also a three chamber bat box. These plans are very similar to the successful boxes sold today by BCM.
These plans have not required updating for quite awhile because they simply have stood the test of time and are quite similar to the plans currently available from some state wildlife agencies today. These plans share the spirit of any modern bat house style maternity roost, but are presented in a way as to require as few power tools as possible, so are suited for anyone with a basic circular saw and power drill. The end result will be a a bat house functionally identical to BCM's 3-Chamber Kit, but with a simple straight-cut vent and roost baffles that can be made with a circular saw rather than a table saw with dado blades.
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Questions & Answers
Have a Question?
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I live in Jacksonville, Florida and just purchased the TAN colored 4 chamber colony structure made from composite. I have a 70’ cabbage palm about 50’ from the creek l live on and that’s where I’m going to mount the house today. This location receives a solid 8-10 hours of sun a day. Seems like that could be too much but if I put it on a 4 x 6 it would also be in the middle of the yard and get full sun exposure. So...can there be too much sun for the lil skeeter eaters?!?!?!!
Hi Brent
I have those bat houses near Jacksonville in full sun and also in part late afternoon shade with success. The best plan is to install one bat house in full sun, another in afternoon shade and let the bats choose...it is likely you may notice occupancy in both bat houses at different times of the year. Some bat houses near Jacksonville are occupied year-round or in winter. - JC -
Please tell me what the bat house is made out of
Generally 1/2'' plywood for the exteriors, and 3/8'' plywood for the interior baffles. However, the way the spacing works with these plans allows for any thickness lumber to be used as desired. Just maintain 3/4'' spacing (furring strips can be used) between baffles, and any other lumber can be used.
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I live in Northern Michigan, we have bats in the walls. I would like to install a bathhouse for them to move to. I didn't see any of the DIY bathouses that specified Northern/cooler climates. I'm not sure what type of bats they are, little black and cute. Which bathouse should I use? How do I get them to move? Where do I put the bathouse, if I put it on the house will they move out of our house into their house? None of the other building have heat, as long as it's on a building (we have two barns) does it matter if it has heat?
Hello- You would want to paint your DIY bat house black in your area. It doesn't matter if you put them on buildings that are heated or out buildings, but you want to make sure the bat house is in full sun. Be careful not to tuck it too far under the eves so that the eves shade the bat house! If placing on a building, attach 2x4 spacers to the building first, then add the bat house to the spacers is best. You can also place it on a pole somewhere in full sun on your property; but not near parked cars as bats will be pooping. A bunch of resources for installing bat houses is here: https://batmanagement.com/blogs/bat-roosts
Bats will not leave your building without you doing something to seal up the crevices they are getting into. Obviously you don't want to trap them inside. The genral procedure is to seal up all the crevices you can find on all sides of the building, then on the main bat entrance place a temporary "one way door". Many resources are availalbe on how to do this, ours is here: https://batmanagement.com/blogs/bat-exclusion-control
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You should consider accepting Pay Pal. I rarely make online purchase using a card. too risky. I wanted to purchase the BCM plans. Can I mail a check?
Hello Ron we can certainly accept a check sent to 1263 Claremont Drive, Carlisle PA 17015. Write "order enclosed" on the envelope. BCM doesn't store your credit card info; cards are charged immediately upon ordering and staff cannot "re-run" a charge once it's processed. This process is automatic and uses high encryption like any other credit card processor.
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I’m looking to build and post a bat house in my local dog park in a suburb of Atlanta. The park doubles as a flood plain during the rainy season and there is large amounts of vegitation in the area. My questions are: What things should I specifically consider? Is there a specific type of bat predominant in the area that I need to cater to? Would these plans be suitable for my needs? Thank you
You likely have big brown bats and Mexican free tail bats in your area that would readily take up bat houses. If using our plans, you might consider changing a couple of the baffles to being 1'' instead of the "standard" 3/4''. Big brown bats always use the wider spacing first. Use post protectors on the post to help insulate them from the ground. Otherwise the remaining tips in the manual / pland should help.