Tweet, Tweet, Tweet, in my Birdhouse
By Corporal Willy, October 20, 2009
Well by now our community of talented people, the professionals and the students have seen some of my work that I posted recently. The latest one being the Barilla Fettuccini Pasta Bridge, so I thought I had better post this one too because I had forgotten to post the Bridge one for a very long time. I must be getting old.
Having lived with parrots for well over twenty years as talking pet members of our family, I decided one day to do some experimentation with a birdhouse that I had been playing around with in my mind. First of all they are very inquisitive animals and at times I am not too sure they should be called animals. I could write for hours on the things that have happened here in this house with our pets, but that has to be the source of another article in the future. In this post I want to discuss and show you what I designed, built the prototype of it and tested in my side yard. We will call this design creation my Solar Heated Duplex Birdhouse. Birds are very social creatures so a Duplex was my way of promoting this social community atmosphere.
I think I had better explain here and now what my intention was in using solar heat to keep things nice and cozy inside. Mother Nature gave birds ways of keeping themselves warm but they do really enjoy the same temperatures we humans like inside our homes. They fluff up their feathers creating more insulating air in-between them in order to help keep the heat transference from their bodies to the surrounding atmosphere. But whenever they can they will build nests in light fixtures, tree trunks, ground holes and holes in roofs and other structures, etc… to get out of the wind and cold. It is important to note that on cold windy days birds face into the wind so their feathers do not get blown far apart to allow the escape of body heat. Pretty smart, huh? They also rarely if ever sit underneath one another. Only bird keepers know and understand this. Hehe.
My solar heated duplex birdhouse is composed of two main assemblies. The first one is the black box which is not mysterious in anyway and has a rather very simple means of heating up the air. Notice the serpentine trail that I call my forced maze. Cooler air at the bottom of the maze must warm up because it is exposed to the sun and has a Plexiglas covering over this box shaped solar heater. Air comes into the bottom from the backside of the solar heater and must follow the path upwards. I really love pictures because it can explain by sight what I cannot find enough words to do. You will take notice that the Heater Assembly has in interior partition going from the top all the way down to the bottom. Also please notice that at the very bottom you will see a rectangular shaped hole there. That allows for the air to be re-circulated into the heater assembly again after it has traveled up to the nesting areas, (two of them) then up into the ceiling and into the attic roof and then after cooling some (getting more dense again) it travels (falls) down the backside of the birdhouse and under the nesting floor and finally down the back slotting hole of the heater all the way to the bottom and starting all over again. Whew! I hope you followed along with that. I don’t know how to explain it any better. I’ll show more pictures hoping that its complexity will be seen for the simplicity it really has.
Some more pictures of the Heater Assembly and the Birdhouse Circulation pathway. As a helpful hint. Warmer air is in the front and top portions and cooler air is in that back and bottom areas. Shown with walls hidden for better inside visualizations.
The Duplex Nesting compartments are meant to house the smaller varieties of birds and has two ¾ inch diameter holes for access to the inside areas. I wanted to include an emergency exit but decided against it because I did not want to lose too much of the warmed up air. The reason I had to place a Plexiglas window in the front of the nesting areas is twofold. First of all I had to have a way of taking the readings of my wife’s oven thermometers that I placed inside of each nesting area and also so that I could see what if any birds might be messing up my testing procedure. I could not close off the two holes because that would have nullified the birdhouse design to be nothing more than a closed up car sitting in the hot sun. You all know what that feels like. Oh yeah, that window was closed over with two layers of tin foil to reflect the heat from entering this area like a car window. I only wanted the solar heater at the bottom to do the heating here.
I named this birdhouse after a little baby girl that died shortly after being born. It really broke my heart but in her honor I dedicated this project to her. Victoria Grace Cote and her name is at the top.