Bridging a Creek

[Boondox]

The method of positioning a telephone pole was addressed locally last year by a fellow here in Vermont facing the same problem. He solved it by buying a couple of VW hoods from a local junkyard, lashing one end of the pole to it, and pushing the other end. The hood acted like a sled keeping the end of the pole from digging in. Seems like desperation is the mother of invention, huh?

Pete

www.GatewayToVermont.com

 

[GlueGuy]

<font color=blue>Can't be sure if your tongue is planted firmly in your cheek</font color=blue>

Not at all. I've seen a bunch of bridges built on logs and poles; especially for short spans. They work great until the wood rots, and the result is not pretty. If I was to build a bridge on poles or logs (any wood), I would think long and hard about how I would protect them from rotting. Supporting them on a concrete abuttment migt be a start...

As for stressing the rebar, tensile strength of high-grade steel is about 125K PSI, and rebar is not "high grade". I would back off from that number considerably; maybe 25K PSI. Although for the short span we are talking about here, I don't know that you'd have to worry about it too much.

The GlueGuy

 

[cowboydoc]

Glenn,
I built two bridges. One with an old truck bed because a guy down the road had it and wanted to get rid of it. The other one with telephone poles. I get gulley washers and both are still standing. When the rain is really bad my creek turns into a river. On the truck bed one I used rough oak and treated it and screwed it into the bed.

For the telephone poles I would use three. I saw a guy one time only use two and it broke on him. The one I did I cut away the bank and layed the poles flat. Then I again used rough cut oak and layed across for planks. I've taken everything across it and no problems.