I’ve been wanting to do a bat house for the longest time, but wasn’t keen on making something that’s already widely available. After much research and following the requirements for certification of Bat Conservation International, I came up with this design. Overall dimensions are 15 1/2″ x 34 1/2″ x 3 1/4″ with a dual landing pad which creates more surface area for our little flying friends to land. The interior partition creates two roosting chambers spaced 3/4″ apart which is ideal for most species in North America. To give them adequate footholds, I made 1/16″ deep kerf cuts every 1/4″ on all the interior surfaces. This process is very time consuming, but will hold up better than plastic netting and safer for the bats as there are no staples that could potentially tear their delicate wings.
These images are of the initial prototype made from some cedar that was practically given to me by a local sawyer. There will be a production run of these in the near future with a few adjustments and constructed out of Western Red Cedar.
