An Insect Hotel as a Utility Box Cover. Part 2 - Roof Construction & Furnishing

THE ROOF

The roof was constructed in a similar fashion to that of a house. The pitch was 45°. The gable ends supported the ridge purlins/laths. The slates were nailed to the laths using galvanised clout nails. 

The gable ends were thus 90° triangles and comprised of pallet planks nailed to principal rafters.

I made an end lapped joint at the top of these rafters so as to furnish a flat face to which the gable end planks could be nailed.

Each gable end rested on the top face of the East and West wall planks, one in line with the South wall and the other the North. 

Pallet planks screwed to the outer face of the North and South walls served as the fixing face for the gable ends.

Once the carpentry was in place, I used a string running from the end of the ridge purlin to the end of the bottom lath as a guide for the lateral position of the slates. 

For the first row of slates I also needed to ensure that they did not protrude into the path of the opening doors. 

To this end I clamped a plank to the underside of the East/West wall planks. This was also the the upper limit for the doors on these elevations. Hence, provided the slate rested on this guide plank I was assured that the door would not be obstructed.

The slates for the first row were cut to half length so as to form the eaves row.
 

I drilled nail holes in all the slates prior to fixing. When fixing slates in the middle of the roof I found it necessary to support the lath behind where I was nailing with a lump hammer, I should have had a rafter in the centre to give a little more stiffness!

 

Prior to the last row of slates being nailed in place, I laid a strip of roofing felt over the ridge and on top of the penultimate row of slates to  ensure the roof was weatherproof
 

 

I used lead flashing to cover the slates upper edges at the roof ridge.

Finally, I closed the gaps between the underside of the slate and the principal rafters by cutting and stapling fruit crate wood to the inside face of the rafter.

 

FINISHINGS & FURNISHINGS 

 

Wooden catches and handles were made for the doors.

 
A coat of linseed oil, tinted with four earth pigments, was applied. If you have never used these before, we have an article here


The hotel was furnished with a selection of pallet wood blocks, these had been drilled using a jig I had made for ease of 'mass production' I will link to it when I have made the film on it.

We also featured a beautifully figured dead branch from our friend's woodland.

Pine cones from the nearby sea shore and many dead flower/plant stems and stalks, drilled shrub branches, bamboos and dried leaves from our garden.

We also particularly added some length of giant bamboo to accommodate the glorious European black bee.

For detailed information on how and what to choose, sizes of holes to drill and tips on length and diameter of individual accommodation for specific arthropods please refer to our Luxury Insect Hotel  design.

A layer of chicken-wire was fixed over the front of the insect house to protect it from birds, who both love to look for nesting materials, try to attach nests and/or eat the insects!

The wire was neatly held in place with some strips of fruit-crate wood.






For the installation of  this insect hotel and the successful hiding of an eyesore, follow this link.

In the meantime, thanks for dropping by and if you have enjoyed this post please share and feel free to comment, ask questions or relate your own experience of the de-uglification of utility boxes.

All the best from sunny Normandie, Andy 

© Andy Colley 2014

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An Insect Hotel as a Utility Box Cover. Part 1 - Design & Construction

A friend of ours is restoring a 300 year-old stone-built longère or long house. The electricity company brought power to the property but sited the ubiquitous supply box right in front of the house. Not surprisingly, she is unhappy with the incongruous nature of such a utilitarian container and asked me to come up with something to disguise the box..
 

It was Sue who came up with the idea of constructing an insect hotel to hide it. She thought that just covering the box with a wooden or stone structure would look incongruous growing out of the front lawn near the flower beds but siting a bug house there would be ideal. I think it is a concept that could be used to encourage insects and camouflage an eyesore, wherever and when ever one may occur.

To give the design a very personal touch, we took an old and very beautiful section of dead tree branch from the property to use in the box. We also collected a variety of cones from the nearby pine forest that skirts the sea shore.

 

Design

Apart from the aesthetics, the very practical reason to cover this utility box was because such installations have a propensity to become car 'magnets'. Sited as they often are at the front of houses and unexpectedly mushrooming up from nowhere, they are habitually backed into by drivers. So the design was made imposing enough to be visible and out of any 'blind spot'.

I decided to make the hotel/cover in two parts: the box (including the insect hotel proper) and the roof. Our friend had some roofing slates left over from last year's major works and I thought it appropriate to have a pitched slate roof  protecting the insect hotel. This would then match the house and add to the harmony of the design within its surroundings aka the genius loci. The accommodation for the insects was to be on one side only, that is the southern elevation. Two doors on the western and east elevation would permit access to the electrical boxes when required.

Finally, the whole was to be held in place by using steel anchors at the four corners embedded in concrete. The ‘free’ ends of the anchors were to fit into pre-drilled holes in the corner posts. The use of these anchors had a further advantage, that is the wooden corner-posts could be held clear of the ground without compromising the stabilty of the hotel, thus limiting the contact with damp during the Winter months. Concrete is not normally a material I use but as it was available here, leftover from another job and as I would be using so little, I opted to use it.

 

Construction

After measuring the minimum interior size needed for the enclosure, I first cut the four wooden corner posts from some 35mm thick pallet wood. 

 


The anchors were made of rebar welded into a cross, the end going into the corner post needed to be round in section so I welded a length of 12mm diameter mild steel bar  to this. They bore an uncanny resemblance to the turn-of-the-century funeral crosses you see on nuns' graves around this area. Albeit a little less ornate.

 

In order to ensure the 12mm hole was drilled centrally up the corner post, I used a small drill press and clamped it to the workbench such that the 12mm bit was over the edge of the bench. I positioned the corner post, and clamped it to the workbench leg so that the centre of it was directly beneath the tip of the drill bit. The post had to be aligned with the vertical axis of the drill press. 

 



Once all four posts were drilled, they were cut to length.
 

 

For the hotel side of the cover, I made square cut-outs at the ends of the upper and lower pallet wood planks to fit the posts., the vertical side walls were nailed to the posts and also nailed into the end grain of the top and bottom planks.

 

The stapling of 10mm thick tongue and groove panelling to the rear of the rectangular frame forming the walls of the hotel stiffened the entire structure.

The north wall was much simpler, with the posts nailed to two horizontal rails and with the wall planks nailed to these. The substantially longer nails were bent over on the inside of the wall and hammered flat.

Prior to the fixing of the wall planks, two additional wooden planks were cut to fit the gap between the rails and were nailed to the posts.
 

 

Two pallet planks were screwed to the upper faces of the north and south walls so as to form the other two sides of the structure. Narrower planks of the same length were screwed to the lower edges of the walls, thus forming the rectangular faces of the East and West aspect.

  

Doors were made to fit these faces and were attached.

In the next post, I  continue, with the construction of the roof and the fitting out and finishing of the Insect Hotel the link is here.

Thanks for dropping by and if you have enjoyed this post please share and feel free to comment, ask questions or relate your own experience of the de-uglification of utility boxes.

All the best from sunny Normandie, Andy 

© Andy Colley 2014

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Two Insect Hotels & Bug Houses Designed and Made from Repurposed Materials - The Gite & The Chalet

There are so many fascinating insects living in a garden and they need both places to overwinter and somewhere to lay eggs in warmer months.

Many gardeners are fastidious in clearing away rotted wood, fallen branches, piles of leaves and herbaceous stems. This debris however, offers sought-after accommodation to a whole raft of arthropods, many of whom have kept the garden pest-free, as well as pollinating fruits and vegetables.

In order to compromise therefore, it is necessary to offer alternative accommodation. This is however not the whole story. Continued use of pesticides has severely depleted insect populations, so if you can offer a haven for them within you own garden, then you are also doing your bit to preserve the biodiversity and counteract the harm being done elsewhere

The following blog post offers two of our more simple designs, whereas the following article will share some of our more elaborate insect homes. These are all made from repurposed materials, untreated pallet wood, fruit crate wood and general garden debris. To decorate them, we use natural earth and mineral pigments, made, as the name suggests, from clays and semi-precious stones. Our article using natural pigments should help you, if you have never used them before.

The Gîte

This is one of the simplest form of solitary bee and lacewing houses, two types of insect who offer so much to the gardener. There are over 200 species of the former, one such, the Harebell bee is so small it can fit inside a wheat-straw stalk and often uses a disused woodworm burrow. When the bees find the accommodation to their liking they will stay throughout the year, using the hole as a nursery, making it the basis of an expanding colony for the garden. This is of great advantage, as it is the solitary bee, which does most of the task of pollinating our food crops. The recommended diameter of burrow to attract these bees is from 2-10 mm. You can achieve this by simply collecting suitable sized hollow stalks or you can do as we did above and drill out some of your old prunings, in our case; buddleia. The lacewing, a delicate and beautiful creature is a wonderful gardener's helper, with many of the species having a voracious appetite for aphids. This sort of accommodation can be sited anywhere you find a suitable opening but in order to attract the insects initially it is a good idea to site it where there are melliferous flowers

The Chalet

This is a nice little project and where you can use natural pigments to create some really harmonious designs as well as useful insect accommodation. They also make great gifts and can be either suspended or attached directly to walls or fences.

The chalets are made from pallet wood blocks with a piece of pallet wood planking for the backing board. They also have roof shingles cut from fruit crate wood. The roof shingles can be attached either with 15mm panel pins or, if you have it, a mechanical or electric stapler. The most difficult part is drilling the pallet wood block. I used 6 and 10mm drill bit.

If you are thinking of this as a project for a child, it could be given in kit form, even as a gift, for self-assembly and the opportunity to get creative in personal choice of decoration. From experience it is better to varnish or oil each individual element before the final assembly. You can have great fun mixing and matching the pigments and apart from being great gifts, these insect homes can make useful little items for a fund raising event or, who knows, the start of a whole new career! 

Truly the gift that keeps on giving, when we were wrapping up one of these as a birthday present, we noticed that one of the chambers was already occupied! It also makes a fascinating study to just sit and watch who comes to check out the accommodation. On the right, you can see that two holes have already been sealed. If you have leaf cutter bees, then they make for compulsive viewing.


Here is our detailed film on how to make the chalet:

A following post will share two more designs for insect hotels, again made from repurposed freely available materials, so until then, thanks for dropping by!Please feel free to share this article, comment and/or ask for further information.

All the best, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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Home-made Repurposed Wood, Luxury Insect Hotel or Five Star Bug House for the Discerning Arthropod

Fun to make and fascinating to watch, these insect hotels can make all the difference to the successful pollination of your fruit and vegetables and also to the control of pests by insect predators.

Open for Business - Build Your Own Green Hotel

Here's our deluxe version and in the next post I will be featuring our designs for 'Eco Lodges' smaller hanging and nestling accommodation you can place around the garden or orchard. They also make great presents, not only for Christmas but also in this larger form an ideal Wedding Gift. 

Here is a close up of what an occupied room looks like - in this case the 'door' is closed with clay but some creatures like the leaf cutter bee.. yes it's all in the name! 

Larger arthropods we find in our garden and have photographed, can overwinter in the larger stems and or bark and leaf infill. 

 

Some of these like the larvae of the Stag Beetle are becoming ever more rare, so providing them with a permanent shelter is a great idea. The larger stems will also be able to accommodate the beautiful large European Black solitary bee, again another species, who is threatened by extinction.

This is a great project to do with kids as there is a massive selection of differing natural materials to be sought from within the garden or further afield in woods and hedgerows. The end result can be quite artistic the only limit is your imagination. Children also enjoy seeing who is using the Hotel and can observe the essential role insects play in nature, for pollination and pest control.

Some of the materials we found for the Hotel, dried teazle heads, fir cones, dry branches, various dry flower and vegetable stems, dry bamboo canes and leaves, moss and lichens and of course pallet blocks.

Making the Hotel Frame

The structure is a rectangular frame with shelves within surmounted with a triangular apex. It is simply nailed together, including the rear wall of tongue and groove planking, which ensures that the hotel remains square and rigid.

I selected 100mm (4") wide untreated pallet wood planks.

The bottom, top and shelves were cut 50cm long. The two vertical sides were cut  50 cm plus twice the plank thickness.

The vertical sides are nailed into the end-grain of the top and bottom pieces and to ensure that the nails do not split the wood this close to the edge, I drilled pilot holes for them.

I used a 2mm drill for the holes, the nails are 2.4mm in diameter.

When nailing the sides I made sure that the rear edges of the planks were level with each other.......

.......and the corners remain square.

I used pallet blocks (pre-drilled for use in the Hotel in this image) to set the distance between each shelf. I found it easier to drive the nails into the end grain of the shelf if I once again drilled pilot holes at the appropriate positions in the vertical side walls.

If you want to put a vertical divider in an area then cut it to length and nail it to the shelf before the shelf is nailed in place. the free end of this divider may then be nailed to the top plank. You can see this in the image at the start of this post.

The triangular section at the top of the structure has a 90° angle at its apex. I initially had cut a 45° angle where it met the edge of the vertical side but I thought this was unnecessarily difficult so I just cut a square edge as illustrated. I found there was no structural difference in doing this and as the wire mesh on the front face was held in place with quarter-round beading this joint was hidden from view.

I had marked a centre line in the top of the rectangle and used a try-square from this line to determine the lengths for the two angled pieces.

Once again, pilot holes for the nails were drilled. Notice that the drill is vertical to the face of the sloping piece of wood.

When the Hotel is filled with the 'bedding materials', the exposed portions of nails are hidden from view.

The rear wall can now be cut to size and nailed in place. I used tongue & groove panelling 10mm thick. I marked the length and shape of the piece and nailed each one in place before marking and cutting the next one. Pilot holes were drilled and the back wall was nailed to each shelf as well as the rectangular frame and the triangular top.

This, ensured the whole structure was rigid and the, potentially, weak points (where nails were entering the end grain or going in at an angle) were reinforced.

And this is how it looks.

Fitting out your hotel rooms

 

Now comes the fun bit, filling the Hotel with suitable nesting materials. I used the pallet block as a guide for cutting twigs and branches to length. The 'compartments' between the pallet blocks were filled with an assortment of natural materials as well as these cut stems. 

I cleared the pith out of some stems (like the elderberry) with a stiff piece of wire. Some stems were left with the pith as certain insects eat the pith and/or use it to create doors to seal the rooms.

For the twigs, branches, and pallet blocks I drilled holes of between 4mm and 10mm diameter. 

Before everything was put in place, straw was packed along the whole back wall of the hotel to provide insulation and extra bedding.

All of this was done with the Hotel laying flat on its back. 

Once filled, chicken wire was cut to size and secured with quarter round beading nailed to the front edges of the structure. I used 30mm long panel pins to do this.

A nail punch was used to drive the panel pins' heads flush with the wood surface.

Siting your Hotel

Your Hotel once completed should be sited in a sheltered location and preferably in a South Easterly to South Westerly facing direction. This house is meant to be placed at ground level or hung on a wall. In the next blog I will show how to make the smaller Eco Lodges, motels, chalets and gîtes we designed for placing around the garden, on a balcony and/or hanging in trees. 

Beware once made, these insect hotels make addictive watching, people have been known to spend hours observing insects coming in and out of their hotels! Have fun and now, if you'd like to, sit back and watch the film.
 

For a smaller insect hotel project see our blog post on The Bee Cosy for cosy bees!

Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to share this article, comment, ask questions and if you'd like to be assured of getting the next post, then sign up to follow this blog.

All the best, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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