Have I mentioned that bats would love the flight path over a pool conversion in order to drink?
Permaculture principles state that one of the desires of a permaculture location is to provide habitat for native animals. Habitat should include:
Food: Native plants provide nectar, seeds, nuts, fruits, berries, foliage, pollen and insects eaten by an exciting variety of wildlife.
Water: All animals need clean nontoxic water to survive.
Cover: All wildlife needs sheltered places.
Places to Raise Young: Wildlife needs resources to reproduce. Some species require substantially different habitat in their juvenile phase.
Which brings us back to bat houses and providing places to raise young. I don’t think the house needs to be particularly near the pool. In SoCal it probably would be better to have it in a coolish location. So many places I looked at on the internet had a one-size-fits-all attitude toward installing them saying that they need to be in the Sun 6 or so hours a day which is insanity in a hot area such as ours. You want a nice even temperature out of direct sunlight. The best location in my opinion would be one that got some morning Sun in the winter but not excessive. Here is one of the better sites I found.
www.batmanagement.com/Batcentral/batboxes/whyfail.html
Best
Bob