Gettin' out of the house

[pdxman]

Re: Gettin\' out of the house

Well, the culvert didn't hold up and all my fill washed out. Haven't had a chance to look at it in the daylight since last weekend. But, was able to pull the culvert out by hand the other night and throw in my pickup...don't want it to find a pair of legs and walk off being that it was right next to the county road. It was plugged with debris on the end so I am sure it was undersized. Plus, during the heavy flow, was also submerged.

Question; Any rules of thumb on making an overflow? Might as well find this out before investing more time on it.

Sundays supposed to be nice here. I'll take the camera down and snap some after shots.

The horse trail is the remains of an old cat road when the place was logged many years ago. It is steep and uneven and I am very reluctant to take the tractor very far up it (I tipped it over awhile back and don't want a repeat).

 

[Harv]

Re: Gettin\' out of the house

<font color=blue>Any rules of thumb on making an overflow?</font color=blue>

The idea is to provide a channel which will carry excess flow away from your culvert and drop it back into the creek at some downstream point. I guess the theory is that it's better to sacrifice a little erosion across your road in favor of preserving the culvert. One way to minimize that erosion is to construct a swale at the road crossing itself.

I made <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.acknowledge.com/tractor/L2500DT/photos/Overflow.gif>this sketch</A> a while back, and in fact it pretty well represents the way I constructed the overflow on my first culvert. Although it would be better to divert the flow further from the culvert, it did overflow and survived the first winter. I haven't seen it since this recent bout of heavy rains we just had, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I've learned that culverts are something you re-evaluate after each rainy season.

If you want to read yourself silly, take a look at these earlier threads:

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tractorbynet.com/cgi-bin/compact/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=projects&Number=17566&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1#Post17566>Culvert Project</A>

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tractorbynet.com/cgi-bin/compact/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=projects&Number=37222&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1#Post37222>Culvert Updates</A>

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tractorbynet.com/cgi-bin/compact/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=projects&Number=47456&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1#Post47456>Culvert Redux</A>

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tractorbynet.com/cgi-bin/compact/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=projects&Number=14271&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1#Post14271>Colvert???</A>

 

[pdxman]

Re: Gettin\' out of the house

Well, here's whats left of it. I did remove the actual pipe earlier this week.

Harv: Thanks for the threads.. I'll take a look at your experiments.

One thing I noticed in mine was how much rock actually washed away and is gone. I think the first rock I put down this time will be some larger pit run.

 

[Thomas]

Re: Gettin\' out of the house

Mother nature sure can teach us a lesson from time to time.

Where I live we would need a permit to install a culvert from travel road way,and if there were damages of any sort it would be out of the land owners pocket.

Maybe some sort of a header to in take of culvert might help.

 

[Harv]

Re: Gettin\' out of the house

Wow, water sure can be ornery when it takes a mind to, eh?

And to think ... we drink the stuff. /w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif

 

[gerard]

Re: Gettin\' out of the house

pdxman - tough to judge from the pics but that looks like about 12 inch pipe? Might want to consider upsizing to 18 or better and use the collars they make for the upstream side. Oversized will let any debris, mud etc be washed through to ther other side and the collar helps prevent the water from washing away the back fill. Also as you already figured out the bigger the rocks the better, at least for the base. Water washes away gravel and running crush pretty easily. As an alternative you could also get some used railroad ties and just make a bridge for a gap that small.

 

[beenthere]

Re: Gettin\' out of the house

pdxman If this crossing is not too far from your place, how about building a portable 'bridge' that you could carry up the road with your FEL, drop it in place, use it for crossing, and take it with you when you leave? Or move it out of the ditch when you leave, storing it on the opposite bank, until you want to cross again? Maybe even two 'ramps' that would handle your tractor. Some heavy plank and timbers bolted together could handle your tractor, keeping it as small as possible so as not to be any bigger than your gravel/culvert crossing. Just a thought that might keep you out of any hassle with the local gendarmes and survive the 'floods'.
Another thought, if the above doesn't sound good, is to build a plank and timber bridge, that is cabled to the trees on the bank above, that will hold the bridge when the water comes up and floats the bridge. At least the cables might keep it from floating downstream.
I grew up around my uncles farm in Iowa, and that is how he maintained a bridge to his fields. He was tired of going downstream to collect his bridge material, so cabled it and just let her float when the floods came. Sometimes he had to straighten it out, but at least it was in the vicinity.

 

[MossRoad]

Re: Gettin\' out of the house

I would get a permit and have the highway department spec it out. If that pipe had overflowed and gone to the roadway and washed it out, I think they might find you liable for the repairs. Our land is on a state highway, and they specified down to the inch where we had to put the driveway, the size of the culvert and the end pieces. We opted to not put in the culvert until we build out there. We just drive over the exisitng ditch. Not the same situation as yours, except when it rains, it is a torrent.

 

[pdxman]

Re: Gettin\' out of the house

Thomas, I originally put this in thinking that I could get away without having a permit. But after seeing what could happen, I agree with you and now think I should give the county a call. Wouldn't want them to thump me with a bill for repairing their road if my project ended up causing damage/w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif.

 

[pdxman]

Re: Gettin\' out of the house

I gave the county a call today just to see what was involved in a permit for this project. Although the person I spoke with did not know exactly how much the permit costs...He did say there were two kinds available.

1. Driveway permit for regular residential long term use requires that off a paved road the landowner must pave the full 20 foot abatement over the ditch.

2. Restricted use permit is available if it is being done for occasional access to the property. Only 3 feet needs to be paved off the county road.

I also hypethetically asked what would occur if the county 'found' one of these culverts without a permit. They would first send notice to the landowner to remove and take action themselves if it wasn't carried out (billing the landowner).

I guess I'll have to think on this and do the math.