# Bridge construction



## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

We recently constructed a bridge for access to our shale pit. There is a old farmhouse where my dad grew up on the property. There was a bridge there that had wooden beams and planks but washed out in the flood of '72. My dad installed (4) 10" beams with planks on top. and has been there since. Just had to replace the planks once in awhile. Well, we needed to build a bridge to handle the tri-axles. We got ahold of (4) 24" beams, 40' long.

We poured a 12" x 3' footer. Built boxes for headwalls 2' x 2' and placed the beams on top of the headwalls. We then place 3" corrugated tin on the beams and poured 12' of concrete with 3/4" rebar and wire mesh. We placed 10" beams on the outsides and welded t-rail up to hold our forms and will later help to construct a guardrail.


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

more pics....


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

more pics......


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## PipeGuy (Oct 8, 2004)

Looks like fun. How muh time did you put into it?


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

PipeGuy said:


> Looks like fun. How muh time did you put into it?




It was would have been a real simple job and took us 5 days, but it rained 3 days straight and it ended up taking us 7 days.


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## PipeGuy (Oct 8, 2004)

Small streams can be funny animals. A couple of years ago an old lady that had been living in the same house for 50+ years called and need her driveway 'bridge' replaced. It was a homemade concrete thing that had lasted 40+ years but had finally surrendered to heating oil truck traffic and the increased stream volumes being continually introduced by nearby upstream development. While there was barely any flow during normal conditions, it swelled to its full width and depth (about 12 x 5) during any kind of substantial rain event.
The old lady had very little money to spend. Without a bridge there was no vehicular access to the house and it was a good 1500 foot hike from the bridge. It broke my heart to explain to her that her budget couldn't likely buy a fix that could be guaranteed to last more than a couple of rain storms. Ultimately she couldn't find anyone else interested in touching the job and decided to spend what she had on what I thought was, at best, a short term fix. We removed the old bridge and abutments and installed twin elliptical pipe, backfilled with lean mix, armored the ends with small rip-rap and paved about an 8' wide driveway over the culverts.
As happens with most 'charity' jobs, the lowboy driver broke the neighbors concrete driveway apron while unloading the excavator and after fixing it we wound up losing money on the job. What do they say - no good deed goes unpunished?


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## tgeb (Feb 9, 2006)

Nice looking work Rino.

The flood of '72 was major. I am always surprised when I am up that way that people still talk about it. My Grandfathers house was flooded to the door knobs on his second floor. My Dad and oldest bro went and shoveled mud out of the house, what a mess!

My aunt has a house near the river and when they call for flooding they hang the furniture that is in the basement, they only get about 2 feet of water, so they have ropes and pulleys on the ceiling and hoist it all up till the storm passes. Craziest thing I have ever seen. 

It's about time you all got around to fixin' that bridge!


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## jojo (Jan 11, 2006)

Impressive,,looks like a damn fine job:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:


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## denick (Feb 13, 2006)

Nice looking work rino. Do you want to sell your 977?


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

denick said:


> Nice looking work rino. Do you want to sell your 977?


haha, no.......you wanna sell your 955? :thumbup:


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## PipeGuy (Oct 8, 2004)

denick said:


> Do you want to sell your 977?


Is that an 'L' model?


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

PipeGuy said:


> Is that an 'L' model?



Good eye :thumbsup:


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