Bridges

[George]

This spring was one of the wettest on record around here and the rain came several inches in an hour several times.

One neighbor had lived at his place since 1972 and crossed a creak on one of the most cobbled up crossings ever but got along until this year. He has been a contractor for years and kept dragging home " left over culverts" and laying them side by side then capped them with a mess of concrete.

With large rains would come tree limbs that would lodge sideways and plug the openings and wash everything out. This is some of the mess I took out.



I took 2 water tanks that were 8' in diameter and 16' long and cut the ends out and made an 8' by 32' culvert with the top of the pipe being 1' above the surrounding ground so that the finished crossing would stand 2' above the ground - - - in this manner if the water comes faster than the culvert will take it the flow will go around and not wash out the crossing.

This is starting back

The finished crossing looks nothing like what we started with.

 

[Soapweed]

Looks great, George. Very neat and functional.

 

[George]

Old tanks can be found at a reasonable cost around here - - - much cheaper than a culvert and most of the time much stronger although they do not have an engineer's stamp for this purpose so they cannot be used for public roads.

If you get old fuel tanks fill them completely with water and then put an open hose from an air compressor into the water overnight to completely remove vapors before cutting and cut with the tank full and the air blowing - - - slow going at first but as the water leaves the torch makes better progress - - - I do not want to have one blow up on me!