BUilding a new road, culvert suggestions?

[green duck]

They should be smooth on the inside -- the ribbing on the outside is to help bed them and prevent water from flowing beside them.

Okay, they must be smooth on the inside. I have not been to look at them, just called around and priced. Doesn't matter either way since those ribbed black culverts are out of the question, $400.

I have seen where people talk about crushed concrete on here. Do you get that from a gravel place or just find a building being torn down?

Thanks

 

[studor]

I have seen where people talk about crushed concrete on here. Do you get that from a gravel place or just find a building being torn down?

A lot of times you can get it as fill from demolition sites etc -- there is a paving brick company near me that would let you haul broken bricks etc away all day. My personal preference is to avoid using that kind of stuff as I have plenty of rocks on my land and they work as well or better than "ugly" broken concrete. I use concrete as a grout and then place rocks in it for looks but each to his own
regards

 

[EddieWalker]

Here's a picture of my 18 inch culvert with the 40 pound concrete sacks of concrete stacked up in front of them. This has handled some very intense, heavy rains, without any sign of erosion.

Eddie

 

[jenkinsph]

Here's a picture of my 18 inch culvert with the 40 pound concrete sacks of concrete stacked up in front of them. This has handled some very intense, heavy rains, without any sign of erosion.

Eddie

Eddie,
I have an upcoming project where I am planning to build up an existing embankment with the concrete sack method and 1/2" rebar. Question I have is "how well does the concrete adhere to itself with the paper left in place?


Steve

 

[EddieWalker]

I've never tried to tear one apart, so I couldn't say how well it holds together. I use 3/8 or #3 rebar on the ones I've done. My theory is that when you push the rebar through the sacks, it tears the paper and mixes the concrete from the two sacks together to some degree. I like to drive the rebar through all the sacks, and at odd angles to interlock it together as much as possible. Then when the concrete sets, the rebar is locked in there solid and there's no way that it can go anywhere. The paper and plastic lining in the paper disapears after a few years where exposed, but between the sacks, it might be there forever. Another part of my theory is that the sacks form a bond to each other when they dry due to the shape they create when stacked on each other.

I like the 40 pounds sacks because they are easy to handle. The larger sacks are wider, which isn't needed. The length and thickness of the sack is all that matters, not so much how wide they are. So my thought is to buy the easy to handle sacks that are just at thick as the heavier sacks without spending the extra money. One time, for whatever reason, Lowes had a sale on 50 pound sacks that were less mone thn the 40 pound sacks. I went with the cheaper, larger sacks then, but that's the only time I've used larger sacks of concrete to do this.

The rebar goes through the sacks really easy. You barely need to tap them with a hammer. The hard part is cutting the rebar. I make them about a foot longer then the section that I'm going through. I don't know if this is a good idea or not, but it seems to work.

Eddie

 

[jenkinsph]

Thanks for the information Eddie, I am going to put this project together in a few weeks.



Steve

 

[mike69440]

Left over Septic Pipe

 

[Topstrap]

That looks like what we call SB2 for leech lines. It might work for a driveway for cars or light vehicles but it is not very thick and is only single layer. Regular plastic culvert has thicker outer ribs and also a smooth inner liner to help water flow and has a lot more strength to prevent crushing. If you put it deep enough and backfilled with some good crush/run so it would pack evenly around it and get a good cover it might hold up but I'd be worried about having anything heavy run over it. Anything heaver than my skidloader with tracks or grading tractor will crush it easily when I grade in the yard when done.

Just my 2 cents on using that but I hope it works for ya.

Topstrap

 

[Oldtrout]

I built a couple miles of road through my woodlot I required 6 culverts didn't like the cost of metal or plastic so I built mine out of 3 inch thick hemlock,just a box 16 feet long,no bottom except for a few braces on the bottom to keep the sides from coming together. The smallest is about 2 feet wide and the largest is about 4 feet wide,the top decking is placed in the direction of travel. Its been 18 years since we installed them,and they are still holding up very well,and still haul the odd tractor trailor load of logs across them. There is no gravel,(fill) on top of the box culverts.

I don't know what the actually cost was as I cut my own logs and traded with the local mill logs for plank.All the culverts were built on site and put in place with the log loader on my porter. A friend of mine done the same thing however he used logs for the sides and than bought plank for the top,seems to be holding up well for the appox 10 years since he built them.

 

[dave1949]

I built a couple miles of road through my woodlot I required 6 culverts didn't like the cost of metal or plastic so I built mine out of 3 inch thick hemlock,just a box 16 feet long,no bottom except for a few braces on the bottom to keep the sides from coming together. The smallest is about 2 feet wide and the largest is about 4 feet wide,the top decking is placed in the direction of travel. Its been 18 years since we installed them,and they are still holding up very well,and still haul the odd tractor trailor load of logs across them. There is no gravel,(fill) on top of the box culverts.

That's interesting because the original settlers of the Great Black Swamp in NW Ohio used the same technique to drain the land. Made field tiles as you described and buried them in trenches. The native lumber was white oak, I suppose some of those are still down there 150 yrs later.

Dave.