It is a very sad case when you come to know about a failed BH and the owner surrendered !!!
It was put into operation about 8-10 months ago and have not a single nest.
The cost to build the building was more than RM70,000 and right now it became a white elephant.
The actual reason being the BH was wrongly designed and the owner have very little knowledge about those swiftlet.
I received a call about a few weeks back about this stranded BH and the owner wanted me to take a look at it.
Since I planned to visit the town closed by to the BH I accepted her invitation.
The first thing I did when I reached the main town I met the owner and she guided me to the BH.
From the outside the BH looks okay however internally there were many big signs that the consultant or contractor or the owner herself clearly have little knowledge about what those birds love to have.
The size was about 20 feet by 40 feet and 30 feet high.
Main mistakes discovered were:
1) The entrance hole was facing the wrong direction. It was towards the morning flight path and not the opposite.
2) The three nesting rooms, one room per floor, were all too bright. A very awkward design with the nesting rooms half done and totally exposed to the tunnel bright light.
3) There were two exhaust fans but not a single ventilation holes. The temperature and humidity was not within the standard range.
4) The top most ceiling was not layered with cement floor but only those zinc sheet. This might be one of the reason why the internal heat was way too high.
5) The staircase or in this case the ladder to climb from one floor to another was so dangerous. If you want to climb up you are putting yourself in a dangerous position.
6) The external walls were with cladding using those zinc roof layer however there were little gaps with the cement walls. The heat accumulated on the zinc surface can be directly transferred to the wall thus defeat the whole purpose of heat isolation.
7) The sound system seems to be shut down thus this BH is not in operational mode.
8) The way the nesting planks were installed were very unreal, Each floor there were only about 15 pieces and about 10 feet long each.
9) The tweeters numbers were very few however there were some bird shit spots on a few of the tweeters.
A very strangely constructed and renovated BH.
In my mind I can conclude that the person who came out with this BH design was ignorance.
Ignorance about what a good BH should be designed.
I was asked to reactivate the BH but I told the owner if she wanted to be done the cost to do so will be pretty high.
I considered it as a major revamps.
We can only use the outer shell but the rest need to be taken down and rebuild.
It might cost something like RM25,000 and I am not it the position to fork up the cost just because someone make the mistakes.
This is one case where a person with too little knowledge about swiftlet build her own BH.
The end result is bad and the cost to revamp is high.
It might not be her mistake in total but she should have got the right person to construct her BH.
Learn from this article and try to give yourself a chance to build the rightly designed BH.
Try to learn and gather the right knowledge plus try to visit at least 5-10 BHs before dumping in your life saving.
If you don't know how to call 017 7551318.
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