Paul Downes
Member
- Messages
- 959
- Location
- Westphalia, Michigan
I'm in the process of building a bridge over a friends creek. The span will be around 28' and that's not counting extra length on the ends for safety. 28' is about what just gets me from bank- to- bank. Because I don't have poles long enough, ( I figured I would need 36 to 40 ft. to be safe) and not liking the possibility of flex in the middle, I have decided to put in a couple of piers in the middle for support. The idea is to sink in some 3 ft. dia. drain tiles upright in the middle of the creek with 12" dia. galvanized culvert in the middle of those all filed with cement and re-rod. The 3' culvert would be about 3' high with the smaller culvert rising up to around 7 or 8 ft. I have been thinking that the 12" culvert/cement posts will be a bit undersized to take the compression from the loads. We planned to just make a 4x4 quad bridge, but it seems to be not much more work to build something capable of supporting a truck or tractor. Any learned opinions out there?