I Beam help needed

[MarkV]

Eddie,

I am still wondering about the necessity of a bridge at all. I have a pond that is about 5 acres and was originally built by the state back in the 60’s to help control runoff. There is a constant spring creek feed into the pond and a constant flow out of the pond even during our drought years. I think the overflow pipe through the dam is about 8”. Our emergency spillway at the end of the dam is roughly 10-15’ wide at the entry point and built like a “swale” with gently sloping sides. Very easy to walk or drive through.

Now I know every site is different so yours may not respond like mine. I have watched our pond through the heaviest rains and watched it raise the pond level by a foot or better numbers of times. During the aftermath of Katrina we were hit with several days that dropped 6 to 8” of rain per day. That is the only time I have seen the spillway come into play and remember this pond was built by the state to collect area runoff. Even thought where the spillway narrows after the entrance it looked like a raging river the entry “swale” area may have had 6” of water moving through it that you could walk through if needed.

Given how new your pond is, great job by the way, I have to wonder if you are sure you will be dealing with as much spillway action as you are planning for. A bridge is nice but it is expensive, will require maintenance eventually and there are the liability issues others mentioned. Our nicely compacted clay swale has done the job here for over 40 years, is maintenance free and shows little signs of erosion. I am not saying I know your pond better than you just sharing our experience as food for thought.

MarkV

 

[TOMDUALLY]

Re: I Beam help needed

the spillway narrows after the entrance it looked like a raging river the entry “swale” area may have had 6” of water moving through it that you could walk through if needed

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Eddie, this is all the more reason to build a bridge, in the early 70's at Fort Hood, TX there was a heavy storm and the water was only about 6 to 8 inches going over the road, it had already filled the two 36" culverts going under the road, the man in front of me stopped his pickup got out and looked it over, said "it's only 6" I can make it" got in his truck and proceeded on. I can still see the faces of his 4 & 6 year old sons looking out the back window at me as his pickup was washed off the road. We found the pickup a quater mile down stream and the bodies about a mile and a half. That said your are building a "CLASS 1" RV park so why skimp, with just 6 inches of water going down your spillway,, some MONCHO person is going to try to cross it.

 

[CurlyDave]

some MONCHO person is going to try to cross it.

Tom:

As I understand the situation, this is not on a road, or anything even clost to a road, it is a walking path which crosses the top of Eddie's dam.

What I am visualizing is something like a golf cart path.

Hopefully there is not going to be any "legitimate" way to get a car to this bridge over the spillway. Plus, Eddie can control this by making the bridge only 4' wide, which effectively limits it to pedestrians.

Now nothing prevents some idiot with a 4x4 from trying to drive along it, but this is a completely different liability situation. Eddie may still get sued, but his insurance company will pick up the defense & should prevail.

Plus, two stout posts at each end of the railing is going to effectively prevent anyone from driving over the bridge.

Similarly, if someone in a 4x4 tries to use the spillway crossing he is clearly where he shouldn't be. Eddie is not going to let guests drive on his lawn & dam. The tractor is maintenance equipment, not transportation. If someone tries to use a lawn mower path as a road, driving over curbs and lawn to get to it, he is way out of bounds, and is going to get sued for the damage he causes.

There are going to be thousands of design decisions like this in Eddie's project and if he decides to make everything "idiot-proof" he is never going to be able to afford to build the park and it will take so long he will never get it open.

Usually, these kinds of low-probability events are handled by insurance. When Eddie opens, he is going to need commercial liabiity insurance.

I have owned a 50 unit apartmernt complex, which is similar to a large RV park, in that large numbers of tenants are using the property. Turnover was certainly less than an RV park, but we still had an average of 5 move-ins & move-outs per month. Higher in summer than winter. The best we could ever do as a practical matter was to make everything as safe as a "reasonable person" would and then let insurance protect us from the idiots.

Commercial insurance is a whole different ballgame than the homeowners' insurance most people are familiar with. Liability limits were $10M, even 15 years ago, probably higher today. Plus, the insurance company will often send out an inspector. Either you comply with his demands, or no insurance.

Eddie: You might want to contact an insurance company and see what they are going to want. You don't have building inspectors, but these guys may want to see how things have been done. I don't think you need the insurance yet, but finding out that they have requirements for wiring, plumbing, paving, curbs, etc. after you have finished might be expensive. There is no law that they have to give you insurance, or have to accept something which meets building code. They are allowed to have stricter standards.

Now you can "go naked" and not have insurance, but this is not a good idea. We were sued many times. Always over much higher-probability stuff than a bridge collapsing or someone driving in the wrong place and getting hurt. The typical thing was a "trip & fall" accident, or a kid skateboarding and breaking an arm. With a big RV park I would be amazed if there weren't one or two accidents per year. Most of the time, if you have insurance, the company will prevent a lawsuit, just by having staff lawyers. Or, the person complaining will just forget it when he learns that you have insurance.

If you don't have insurance, some is going to trip on a curb, or even their own feet, and sue you. The legal fees will add up fast enought to make your head spin.

We had guys claim that we should pay because their tire went flat in the parking lot...

 

[EddieWalker]

Mark,

I honestly don't want a bridge and if it wasn't for the fact that there is going to be people that will try to walk through overflowing water, I wouldn't put one in. Even a day after a heavy rain, water will still be running over the spillway. It might only be an inch deep, but that's enough to be slippery or cause somebody to fall. It's also enough for me to be negligent in my design be allowing them to cross this area when it's not safe and open the corperation up to a lawsuit.

Tom,

Yup, I agree with you one hundred percent. Most people have common sence and would know that it's dangerous to cross moving water. But even if it's one in ten thousand, that still gurantees that it will happen!!!

Dave,

You and I have very similar thoughts on this and the Park overall.

You are correct in assuming this is an area that is off limits to vehicle traffic. Anybody caught driving off the roads will be told to leave the park. They are no longer welcome here. That's true with any violation of my rules. I won't have many rules, but they will be inforced without any warnings.

My reasoning for wanting a bridge large enough to drive my tractor and mower over seems sort of silly now. There is absolutely no reason for it since the only reason it will be in that area is to be mowing grass, which is on the back side of the dam anyway!!!

With a 4 foot wide walking bridge, there's no way anybody can drive across it anyway. Four wheelers are not allowed and golf carts are still in the thinking stage. If I decide to allow them, than they will have to stay on designated trails and away from the lake.

It's just not the bridge I'm worried about, but what if one of them drives into the lake!!!

Sometimes, I can be a little slow, but with help from you guys, I'll get there.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[CurlyDave]

It's just not the bridge I'm worried about, but what if one of them drives into the lake!!!

This is a real possibility. My dad used to live in the Houston area -- he had one of the homes on Champions Golf Course, if you know the area.

Anyway, a small lake separated his back yard from one of the golf greens. The shore on his side had been stabilized/defined by driving wooden pilings into the ground as a sort of a retaining wall. Between the time he was ~60 and ~70, when he sold the house & moved, he managed to drive his riding lawn mower into the lake 3 times that I know of, and the real count was probably quite a bit higher since he was embarassed to talk about it & didn't tell us about every incident.

Funny thing is that he was good with driving a car -- but get him off road & things went south in a hurry.

The water was about 3' deep there and I still wonder how he got the lawnmower to start again after it went swimming...

 

[EddieWalker]

I bought a piece of flat stock today from the steel supplier and asked what I beams cost. He had these in stock.

8 inch 18 lps per foot at 20 feet is $168 each

8 inch 31 lbs per foot at 20 feet is $298 each

I don't know what I was expecting, but that's allot cheaper than I was expecting.

Next I'm gonna have to find out what PT 2x12's are going for and do a little math.

Eddie

 

[JayDavis]

I live in the same area... or close enough, and our only overflow control is a shallow spillway. Our pond is a few acres, and even in huge downpours the water flowing through the spillway is fairly slow and shallow enough to walk across without water getting into your shoes if you are careful. After the spillway, it channels into a streambed and goes down behind the dam and drops about 20-30ft in elevation to a waterfall about a 5-6ft fall and ties into our springfed stream system in the woods and exits the property about an 1/8mi away and feeds into a creek system tied into the White Oak.

That said, you can make a foot bridge, and maybe a nice wooden fence to block easy access to the banks and bottom of the spillway.... and a sign saying not to cross unless via bridge. That would probably be enough to protect you.

This also begs the question, whenever you have a body of water, people are going to want to swim in it. Will this be allowed? This can be another issue initself also.

 

[EddieWalker]

I went by the lumber yard today.

PT 2x12 that are 20 feet long are $36.89

I'd need more of them, but the price difference and ease of use sure points to using four of these for a foot bridge on 12 inch centers with a support in the middle.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[dooleysm]

I would suggest comparing the 2x12x20 with some 2x12x10. I'm guessing the price/ft is the same, but my experience has been that the longer the board, the more crooked, warped, knotty, etc. Would it be about the same work to make 2 10' bridges vs. 1 20' bridge?

 

[EddieWalker]

The ten footers were actually a little cheaper per foot.

PT 2x12X10 were $16 each.

Not allot, but I was both comparing them in price to the 20 foot I-beams and I thought they would be stronger over the full run. I hadn't thought about straightness on them and I've never used 20 footers before.

Thanks,
Eddie