S&K 12 Room Purple Martin House Comprehensive 2024 Review

The obvious concern about this purple martin birdhouse is that it’s made of plastic. Old-school bird watchers are mostly used to metal or wooden birdhouses.

For good reason, these birdhouses are sturdier and easy to put together. While plastic birdhouses are also easy to assemble, there is a caveat.

Metal and wooden birdhouses have solid panels that can be easily attached together with screws. Plastic bird houses have flimsy panels that can be difficult to keep together when assembling.

That’s where this birdhouse falls short. If you don’t have the patience or would prefer to purchase a vintage birdhouse, there are other options.

On the other hand, it only took us 25 minutes to put this birdhouse together, and we only took that long because we followed the instructions to the letter.

If you’re good with tools, the installation time won’t take long. Also, once the screws begin to go into the birdhouse, the entire structure will become sturdier.

Before making your purchase, you’ll need to buy a special pole and adapter to complete your installation. Granted, it can be frustrating if you buy this birdhouse only to wait for another package.

Overall, this product isn’t the easiest to assemble, but it’s certainly not difficult to put together either.

Ordinary consumers hate warranties.

Rightfully so, warranties are usually one-sided and favor the manufacturer. It’s frustrating to buy a product, only to find out that the manufacturer won’t reimburse you if it’s defective.

Since this is a plastic purple martin birdhouse, it’s absolutely essential that the manufacturer provides a great warranty.

This is especially true if you live in an area with a harsh climate.

In any case, you have nothing to worry about when it comes to this product’s warranty.

Here are some more details about this warranty:

• All products from S&K are produced by a warranty that lasts for a minimum of one year. This only goes into effect if your birdhouses have defects that make installation difficult or impossible.
• You can receive a lifetime warranty if your birdhouse has been installed with its special adapter and pole. If your birdhouse was assembled with the right accessories, this protection applies to you.

S&K is an excellent manufacturer that provides great warranties for all its products. Before moving forward, it’s important to take note of what a defect is.

According to this manufacturer, a defect is a design flaw that prevents you from getting the right use from the product.

The conditions of this warranty is definitely good news since most usually aren’t generous.

We understand that this category is subjective.

Everyone has their own idea of what the perfect birdhouse should look like. Still, we believe that this product’s style quality is exceptional, even for a plastic birdhouse.

Here is everything we love about this purple martin birdhouse:

• This birdhouse can house up to 12 different purple martin families. What’s more is that each entrance is sized at 2-1/4 inches in height and width. This stops sparrows and starlings from invading purple martin nests and disturbing them.
• Unlike metal and wooden birdhouses, you don’t need any tools to assemble this product. In under an hour, you can take advantage of a pre-built design without any major installation work.
• Each home is sized 6 by 6 inches with 3-by-6-inch railed porches for baby martins. This is best for increasing entrance visibility.
• The floors are slightly tilted for easy drainage when it comes time to clean the purple martin house.
• This birdhouse is made of UV-grade polypropylene copolymer plastic. This means this product won’t deteriorate due to exposure to sun rays.

Lastly, this product uses a traditional white and green birdhouse design, despite being made out of plastic. This is why we graded this product pretty well in this category.

This is the most important part of this analysis.

If a purple martin birdhouse doesn’t do what it’s designed to do, then what’s the point of purchasing it.

Unfortunately, many products we reviewed had all the bells and whistles and performed poorly when it came time to attract purple martins.

The good news is that this birdhouse ranks well in this category.

Again, this product has 3-by-6-inch railed porches that are great for baby purple martins playing on the terrace. It’s also worth mentioning that this can house up to 12 purple martin families, which is ideal since purple martins are extremely social birds.

When we unboxed this birdhouse, we were surprised by how large it was. With 18 x 19 x 20 dimensions and weighing 8 points, purple martin families have more than enough space to live and roost.

With roof overhangs, this product also shields purple martins from the rain. Lastly, the keyhole-sized entrances are great at deterring sparrows and starlings from entering.

These birds are naturally hostile toward purple martins and are known to invade purple martin birdhouses. Unlike snakes and raccoons, these birds are very clever and can find ways to enter birdhouses with ease.

This birdhouse makes it near impossible for that to happen.

Finally, let’s talk about how beginner-friendly this product is. Beginner-friendly and ease of assembly are pretty similar.

However, we’re more so talking about how simple it is to use this product for beginners, especially after installation.

Again, this product is very simple to install, which is great for beginner birdwatchers who have never assembled a purple martin birdhouse before.

Next, the instructions are very detailed and can help you set up your birdhouse in under 25 minutes. One of the worst things about buying a new product is viewing complicated instructions or instructions that don’t give you enough details about putting a product together.

This isn’t the case with this product.

After you install your purple martin birdhouse, the only thing you’ll need to do is clean it regularly to allow your martins to come back and nest.

This birdhouse has sloped floors for easy drainage. There are also hinged front panels that make end-of-season cleaning convenient and less time-consuming.

All of these adaptations make this birdhouse completely maintenance-free. Therefore, this product checks all the boxes for being beginner-friendly.

We have reviewed tons of birdhouses and realize that some of them are geared more toward expert birdwatchers.

This one is just right for new birdwatchers.