All you need to know to construct a Purple Martin apartment building, from the ground up, is here, in the form of downloadable instructions complete with blueprints and building materials. There are eight apartments per floor, with a maximum of four floors in a building.
Plans for a Purple Martin House: Instructions for Constructing a Habitat for This Colorful Bird
How to Build a Purple Martin House
Here are the blueprints you need to build a home for a Purple Martin. You can use this blueprint to construct 8-unit Purple Martin apartments and then add on an additional 16, 24, or 32 units later.
The instructions include downloadable house plans for purple martins.
Purple Martin House Plans Overview
About eight inches in length and with a wingspan of 12 inches, Purple Martins are the largest of the swallows. They prefer to perch high up, live in clusters, and gorge themselves on dozens of insects every day.
Despite popular belief, dragonflies and other large insects are far more appetizing to them than mosquitoes.
This set of instructions and blueprints will help you construct Purple Martin houses, which will attract these beautiful birds to your yard.
Basic Considerations
When possible, use a table saw to cut the materials, but a circular saw will do in a pinch. To make the birdhouse, use exterior-grade plywood and a saw.
When putting together the roof, it helps to have a 30-degree bevel cut on the top edges of the pieces that will meet.
The holes for the doorways and air ducts can be cut with a hole saw that is 2 1/2 inches in diameter from the floor or ceiling. The ventilation holes in the walls and gable ends can be cut with a hole saw measuring half an inch.
Before you screw or nail anything together, make sure you use exterior wood glue.
Drill countersunk pilot holes for each screw.
Build the apartment house at individual levels and fasten the levels together with galvanized angle brackets and screws.
Pole Mounting System
Make a pair of 3/4-inch thick plywood standoffs, 1-inch wide and 6-inch long.
Glue and screw these to the bottom of the floor 6 inches apart on opposite sides of the ventilation hole and add the 6-by-6-inch piece of 3/4-inch plywood across them.
Screw a 2-inch threaded galvanised pipe flange to the bottom of the 6-by-6 inch piece for a pole mount. Staple window screen over the ventilation hole on the inside of the floor.
Assembly
Download the plans and follow these directions on how to build a Purple Martin house.
Purple Martin House Plans Parts, Purple Martin House Assembly, Purple Martin House Materials, Bird Feeder Poles, and Pole Mount.
Purple Martin House Materials and Pole Mount
Stand the front and back on edge and place the two sides between them with the faces of the sides flush with the ends of the front and back pieces.
Place a bead of glue inside each of the four joints and nail each joint together with three, 1-inch nails.
On the house floor, make two marks, 2 inches from each corner, and draw a line from each mark to the one on the opposite side of the board.
This marks the front, back, and sides. Place a bead of glue on the floor just inside the lines and set the assembled walls on top of the glue using the lines as guides.
Hold the walls in place with a pair of clamps, turn the entire assembly over, and fasten the walls to the floor with four, 1-inch galvanized screws for each wall.
Remove the clamps and turn the assembly right side up.
Place two partitions parallel to the slots facing up inside the walls. Two more divisions perpendicular to the first two partitions fit over the slots.
Get the partitions reasonably square and place lines on the floor and walls to mark their locations. Remove the partitions, place glue on the lines, and replace the partitions.
On the top-level assembly, run a bead of glue along the top of each interior and exterior wall. Place the ceiling on top, align it with the edges, and add screws to hold it on. Purple Martin Fledgling
Before installing the gable ends, staple a window screen over the ventilation holes.
Install the gable ends on opposite sides of the house.
Run a bead of glue along the bottom edge of the board, drill pilot holes, and fasten the ends to the ceiling with two screws at both corners of each gable end. Place glue on the top edges of the gable ends and screw the roof to the gable ends.
Stack up to four levels and screw them together using three galvanized angle brackets on each side.
Credits and Resources
Image by Ronnie Bergeron on Morguefile.com
photos of a baby purple martin by oakleyoriginals on flickr.com
Purple Martin Male Photos by Susan Young @ Flickr.com
Female Purple Martin by Shanthanu Bhardwaj @ Flickr.com
Information on the Purple Martin and attracting them to your yard.
Purple martin house plans are based on a family design passed down through several generations and modified by the author for modern materials and ease of building.