Bat House Forum

[bohningr]

All:

wworker (Matt) posted a concern about the amount of sunshine shining on his bathouse. Caused me to do some thinking...

I painted my new house a chocolate brown. I seem to recall some diagram of the U.S. with lines delineating areas which suggest different house colors. My house was right on the border, so I chose brown instead of black.

Well, after I read Matts post, I took a close look at my house. At 9:00 a.m. the houes was still in the shade. Weird angles and trees had the ground getting sun, but 15 feet up, there was no sun.

All this to say, I am not real certain how hany hours of sun the house is getting. I think it is not getting a lot of sun, maybe 6 hours... not sure, I need to actually check it out/time it.

The long and the short is I am thinking of two changes, which I should be able to do in an afternoon:
1) pulling the house down and putting a coat of flat black on, to maximize the heat collection.
2) fill the top half of the post sleeve with pea gravel or sand.

Thoughts?


Rick

[Joe Spencer]

Rick, is this the diagram you were referring to?: http://www.batcon.org/bhresearcher/bv4n2-7.html

Seems like you may need to track it and get a total actual sun exposure time. If it doesn't get enough can you easily relocate the bat house?

[bohningr]

Yeah, that is the diagram...

Easy to relocate? No, not really. There are advantages of having it where it is (I use the post to holdup my grape vines). It is out of the way. Plus there is the hassle of digging another 4 foot hole for the post!

It'll stay there this season, if for no other reason than as an experiment. If it fails there, I'll move it in the fall 30 feet to the SW where the sun peeks over the trees a little sooner.

I am in the NW burbs of Chicago.

When I left work yesterday, the sun was not quite hitting the bat house. that was 9:00 a.m. I got home about 6:00 p.m. and the trees on the other side of the lot were blocking the sun. So, the house is getting less than 9 hours of sun a day. How much less, I don't know. I need a sunny weekend, which won't happen this weekend.

What happened to the other reply that was here? Didn't quite answer my question, but still some good info...

Rick

[Joe Spencer]

Ya I thought I remember another reply from Cloudman or someone else. Hmm I will have to keep an eye on this. Good luck on occupancy. My bat numbers are way down and I have no little browns at all. I only had two or so each of the last 4 years but they haven't shown yet and I doubt they will. Maybe WNS got them. Very sad about this.

[bohningr]

I sat out last night, looking to see if any were cruising the backyard. Didn't see any. But, it has been cool and there have not yet been a lot of bugs out. Wait and see.

Rick

[Terry Lobdell]

Rick, metal will heat up faster in the morning than a wood exterior will. Also dark roof shingles heat up fast too. Big browns especially like the morning sun. I honestly don't think black makes too much of a difference over chocolate brown. Brown is more asthetically pleasing in my opinion. A change in exterior texture will probably boost your internal temps the most.