BUilding a new road, culvert suggestions?

[LBrown59]

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.

I've wondered / thought about doing this .
Wasn't sure it would work .

 

[studor]

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

Just a quick thought having bought a bunch of rough lumber at auction for repairing my barn -- the small culvert would take about 288 board feet of hemlock plank (3" thick X 16" long X 2' wide X 3 sides). If you can get the lumber for free it seems like a good deal -- anything over $.50 a board foot and it starts to look like expensive culvert -- JMHO

 

[EddieWalker]

A round pipe, or culvert, handles heavey loads because the load from the weight is spread out and around the pipe. It is not a bridge, and the reason for the dirt over the pipe is to ensure that it works this way. While it's pretty common to see a culvert without anything on top of it, or the soil and gravel have worn away from the top of the culvert, that culvert is not as strong as those with the soil over the top of them. When an 80,000 semi truck with a full load on it drives over your culvert, the weight is absorbed and transfered by the dirt and the shape of that pipe.

While I've never seen, or heard of wooden culverts, I do have some concerns about using them for a road that will have heavy equipment and logging trucks driving over them. If we are thinking of replace an 18 inch culvert with one made from wood, then the wooden version would need to be as large as the culvert to handle the same volume of water. Converting a square from a circle is more thinking then I want to do right now, but just guessing, I'd think that you would want it to be 16 inches, square. A 16 inch span in the ground is going to require a significant amount of bracing and support to handle any type of weight. For it to last decades is just beyond my comprehention.

If you build it out of wood, please post pictures. I'd really like to see this. I'd also love to see what it costs to build a wooden culvert that is as strong and will last half as long as a plastic culvert will.

Some things are figured out and mass produced to the point where they really are the only option. In my opinion, a plastic culvert is your only option.

Good luck,
Eddie

 

[dave1949]

If you build it out of wood, please post pictures. I'd really like to see this. I'd also love to see what it costs to build a wooden culvert that is as strong and will last half as long as a plastic culvert will.

Some things are figured out and mass produced to the point where they really are the only option. In my opinion, a plastic culvert is your only option.

Good luck,
Eddie

Hard to disagree with that. I think the wooden culvert could only be cost effective and worth the effort if you have some sound and stout timbers at little or no cost.
Dave.

 

[Oldtrout]

The next time I go to my woodlot I will take some pics and post,it probably won't be for a couple of weeks or so as its 30 miles from my home.

I agree if someone has to buy the planks it is actually no or very little cheaper than plastic or metal culverts,however in my case I just traded logs for planks,at that time we were only getting 180 $ for hemlock logs and traded 2 for one; ie 2 MFBM logs for 1 MFBM of plank trucking was included.

The largest pulp mill in this area has been using box culverts on all their logging roads for the past 60 years replacing as needed I have been told that they normally last for 25 years. They use them instead of plastic or metal because of cost,but than of course they own the logs and a saw mill.

 

[SpringHollow]

With the wooden culverts, don't you get dirt washing down through the cracks continually?

Ken

 

[Oldtrout]

It doesn't seem to be an issue, as we don't cover the top, the wood actually is part of road surface.

 

[SpringHollow]

Thanks for the clarification.

Are the sides built the same as the top, planks running vertical in this case, or are these very shallow boxes with the sides just being something like a 3 x 12 on edge with planks nailed between them?

Thanks,

ken

 

[Oldtrout]

Thanks for the clarification.

Are the sides built the same as the top, planks running vertical in this case, or are these very shallow boxes with the sides just being something like a 3 x 12 on edge with planks nailed between them?

Thanks,

ken

The sides are 3 X 10 normally,I have gone as high as 3 high giving me a 30 inch high culvert,I than drill a 1 inch hole every 3 to 4 feet through the plank (edge)and pound in whatever 1 in. rod I gave laying around,I used to get from scrap yard for next to nothing.
A couple of years ago I decided to build a small camp a couple hundred yards off my main woodlot road, of course we had a small stream to cross which actually dries up in the heat of the summer we were going to bring in a friend with a portable band saw mill to saw material for camp. I picked out some hemlock logs about 14 to 18 inches in diameter and had him just cut off 2 sides giving me 4 timbers appox. 8 X 14 I used 2 for each side ending up with a 16 in. high culvert 3 feet across.by about 12 feet long ( the road surface is only 8 feet wide as I won't be travelling over it with anymore than a 1/2 ton.

It took about an hour to saw all the material decking is 3 X whatever; he charges 50 bucks an hour so my cost was 50 bucks plus my logs of course.
It took 9 hours plus 2 more hours to saw the pine siding to for camp 16 X 18. Since a few of my friends showed an interest in using the camp for hunting they helped with labour...course I provided the beer....may of been cheaper to pay them...

All I am saying is if you have the logs,can find someone with portable mill it would be cheaper to use wooden box culverts than plastic or steel. Will they last as long? of course not, but if using rot resistant wood ie hemlock lasts 20+ years I figure I am still ahead of the game. Just my 2 cents.

 

[firefighter jim]

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

Interesting. I've never seen that done before. Seems like a pretty good idea.