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Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Bird House Air Conditioning

Add an extra roof to keep your bird house cooler.

In severely hot weather, if the inside of an Eastern Bluebird bird house gets too hot (above 107 degrees) it could harm the eggs.

It is sooo hot here today, with temps up to 96 and a heat advisory with heat index of 100-104 degrees. We always think of how to help the birds stay cool. One way is to air-condition our bird houses. We do this by putting an additional roof on the house. We nail on a piece of plywood, using long nails and only nailing them part way into the original roof. This leaves an airspace between the two roofs of about an inch. The second roof shades the first roof plus the airspace between the roofs acts as an insulator, keeping the bird house cooler.

3 comments:

Animal Annie said...

That's a great idea. In human homes, the storey underneath the roof is always the hottest. It must be the same for birds.

NYC Air Conditioning & Vent Cleaning said...

That is such a "cool" and kind thought for the little birds.Truly although they belong to nature it must also be difficult for them in the scorching summer.

VicDeHaven said...

This page was at the top of the list when I Googled "air conditioned birdhouse". Living here in southwest AZ, I am thinking of making life easier for my nesting doves on these scorching hot (110 -115) days. First thing comes to mind is a nesting platform with top & sides made from that reflective RELECTIX foil coated bubble wrap.

However now I am thinking of complicating it with cloth sides and a water reservoir to keep the sides wet ala our swamp coolers.

It would probably be easier to just cut a hole in the side of the trailer and put a 3" computer fan facing into the back of the nest box to blow cool air from the house into nest box(it has regular A/C). Not directly on the nest though.
I'd make the platform about 12" wide.

Does this all sound too crazy ??
Perhaps they would simply appreciate the first idea of a foil covered hacienda.

Vic in Quartzsite, AZ