Building low water bridge

[savageactor7]

dwhite, 6-8" was the ave depth of our muck swamp that I was contemplating building a bridge or causeway across.

One summer it just dried up so I excavated down to the quick...about 20+ inches @ 6ft across then poured in stone. It took 3 dump trucks of stones but now we have a stable grade crossing suitable for all our wheeled vehicles.

Here's what it looks like during the winter LOL yeah I know not much to look at, but that's the way I wanted it. No maintenance either.

 

[radioman]

dwhite, 6-8" was the ave depth of our muck swamp that I was contemplating building a bridge or causeway across.

One summer it just dried up so I excavated down to the quick...about 20+ inches @ 6ft across then poured in stone. It took 3 dump trucks of stones but now we have a stable grade crossing suitable for all our wheeled vehicles.

Here's what it looks like during the winter LOL yeah I know not much to look at, but that's the way I wanted it. No maintenance either.

So basically you built a drive-on dam ?

 

[savageactor7]

Nothings damned up...that's what stalled me all those years cause ducks breed there in the spring. It's called an underwater crossing, the NVA used to do that in Cambodia so the crossings couldn't be seen from the air but still handle wheeled vehicle traffic. Remove the muck and replace with stone at it's natural level and now you have a good surface for vehicle traffic.

this is what's it like in the summer..trail surface is level with swamp bottom. You couldn't drive over it before doing this...sometimes even the 4 wheeler would get stuck.

 

[ampsucker]

around here, the county uses cement low water crossings. you drive on top of the cement level w/ roadbed and the water flows through it either through embedded culverts or formed channels. when the water gets too high to go through, it goes over. works pretty good if you don't mind getting wet occasionally and if you know enough when not to cross if the water is too high!

as mentioned in previous posts, don't make the bridge too high or the force of the water will push it over during flood stage. i would also consider driving rebar or other pilings down into the creek bed in several places before you pour so you can have assuance the bridge will stay put.

if you are planning on selling the half of the property on the other side of the creek, you won't find many buyers will to ford across a bunch of sumberged rocks to get to their house or whatever. you need a better bridge than that.

amp

 

[tommu56]

Thanks for the input. I'm liking Mark's idea. I want to put 2-3 culverts down but need to figure the flow. Any tricks to calculating stream flow?

Hew is a link
http://watermonitoring.uwex.edu/pdf/level1/FactSeries-StreamFlow.pdf

tom