Bridge Project Status

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I started a post a year ago about a bridge project. The project is finally close to completion so I thought I would document it. I will start by showing some before pictures followed by a few progress pictures and finally some after pictures.

This first picture is looking West to East across a big washout at the bridge. The washout is 50' across and 6 to 8 feet deep.

 

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This is a view from the other direction. The bridge is located behind the clump of trees and brush at the top of the photo. There is a big bowl shaped washout that is 8 feet deep starting a the rocks in the foreground. I had moved many loaders full of rocks in to start filling in the washout.

 

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This is the same view as the last but with the brush cleared. It is about 125 feet from the start of the rocks in the nearest washout to the bank on the other side of the creek.

 

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The bridge had a concrete wall that someone had built in front of it many years before in order to dam up the creek behind it. This was the reason that the bridge had washed out. I got much good advice on how to remove the wall from this forum.

 

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This is another view of the wall. It was 20 feet wide, 8 feet tall, and 1 foot thick. I demolished it using a much modified electric jack hammer that I bought from Harbor Freight for $400 and then had to spend another $400 to replace the motor with the one from the Bosch tool that they copied. I could find no way to use the tractor to help with this part of the job.

 

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This is the same view after I had competed about half the demolition work. I bought some pump jacks to use for a scaffold. They were well worth their cost and were the only practical way to get a scaffold next to the bridge due to the very uneven bottom of the creek.

 

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In this view the washout on the east side of the bridge has been filled in. I dug and moved about 90 cubic yards of fill to compete this side and moved many very large bolders using the tractor. The bolders are to the right in the picture.

 

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This is a view when I had gotten about half way across the washout on the west side of the bridge. This side required that I dig and move about 400 cubic yards of fill.

 

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This is the picture that is missing from the last post.

 

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In this picture I had finally bridged the washout and could drive the tractor across the bridge. I had only moved about half the fill needed to finish this side; however.