BUilding a new road, culvert suggestions?

[green duck]

Like the title says I am building a new road, through some woods and across a pasture. I will need 3 or 4 culverts for this road. I have plenty of hills to cut down for dirt. The road needs to be 15-18 ft wide.

My question is can someone recommend an alternative to buying 3 culverts for $400 a piece. They need to be big to handle the large amount of water crossing the road.

Tell me if this sounds like a bad idea. Could I take 4 or 5, 8-10'' pipe and lay them side-by-side or bunch them together and bind them with some metal bands? I know if i bound them together then water would get between them, but would that work?

I just don't have the money to spend around $1500 on culverts. This is for a logging-hunting road, but I don't want to have to drive my 4WD tractor every time I go down it.

Thanks

 

[bpattie]

don't blame you. your smaller pipe may work, my first thoughts though are smaller pipe would be more likely to clog. is there anyway you could dig a trench and bridge over it? course I am not sure the bridging material would be much cheaper than the culvert.

 

[Egon]

Is it possible to put in a shallow ford?

 

[powerstroke444e]

If you put on small pipe to handle your daily water 8" or so then cover it with 3x6 rock or bigger so big rains will go over the road and still be fairly usable in wet season. Any way you go your going to spend some $.

 

[jda1961]

i know folks will disagree with this but if they are burried deep enuff and nothing to terriblly heavy is driven on them, barrels will make a fine culvert. cut the ends out and and place them end to end in ditch. we have many that have been in the ground for 30 years or more. my grand dad was a tight wad, and he could get all the free barrels he needed from the state road garage, you see back in the old days they would paint the lines on the roads themselves, that paint came in 55 gallion drums. so if you can get your hands on some barrels then you got some good cheap culverts, ya can spot weild em together too.

 

[green duck]

I had considered doing the barrel idea. I can get them really cheap and weld them together. My only problem is I didn't know how strong they would be as log trucks and skidders will need to drive over this road in a couple of years.

 

[green duck]

I have another question. If I weld 6 or so barrels together end-to-end then I would have about 18 ft or so. So I could lay my barrel culvert down then cover it with dirt till the the dirt is level with the top of the culvert ( with top of the culvert showing). Then take something, I don't know what yet, and lay it across the culvert, perpendicular to the culvert, to spread the weight out.

This, if I'm right, would essentially take most of the weight off the culvert and put it on the dirt, on each side of the culvert. Then after laying something across the culvert, cover it all up with more dirt.

Thanks

 

[20 20]

The reason round culverts are used is because of the shape. Once the dirt covers them{all the way around} they become VERY strong. I have used 4" cheap plastic septic pipe as colverts, ran over them with triaxle dump trucks loaded. The key is to keep them round{while burying} and make sure they are back filled completely. A bundle of pipes probably will not work, they'll lose there structural strength, espcially for logging trucks etc. The barrel idea would work better then bundles of pipe.

 

[studor]

I use two culverts side by side on one location on my property but a bunch of pipe together is a bad idea-- the water will go between them and continually wash out the fill. I would try other culvert places -- the plastic ones (smooth inside) should be a lot cheaper than $400 each -- even for big ones.You could use two smaller ones like I have if they work out cheaper than one large one. They are lighter to work with and plenty strong enough -- and they do not dent at the ends -- I was buying 18"x 20' culverts last year for around $125

 

[J_J]

Perhaps build your own out of cement and chicken wire/rebar. You could also lay down a 4 in by 24 in cement pad, and put cement blocks on top of that, and some steel plate, etc.