colverts

[mechanic]

Our builder has put 3 colverts and extended them with other colverts to carry the water to the creek off our property. My question is can you drive a concrete mixer truck over these that have been buried in dirt and rock. They are the plastic colverts and seem to be working well. I have only seen the metal ones, but have been seeing a lot of plastic colverts since ours have been installed. They seem to be using plastic more than the metal ones now all over around the county.

 

[atgreene]

All I will install is plastic. If they are double wall (smooth bore inside, no ribs) and they are buried properly (12" or so) and were backfilled properly (packed down around them before covering, they will support anything you want to drive on them. I've seen steel squash under a cement truck, so don't think it's the culvert, it's how it is installed.

 

[EddieWalker]

The important thing is how well they were filled around the culvert and how much material is above it. There is no problem with the weight of a cement truck, or any other large semi truck when driving over a culvert that's properly installed. The times I've seen problems are from there not being enough dirt above the culvert for the size of the culvert. Just going off memory, I believe you need half the width of the culvert above it in thickness. If you put in a 15 inch culvert, you need 7 to 8 inches of dirt above it.

Eddie

 

[schmism]

Just going off memory, I believe you need half the width of the culvert above it in thickness. If you put in a 15 inch culvert, you need 7 to 8 inches of dirt above it Eddie

generally if properly backfilled, the rated load capacity of a culvert is achived when you cover it with half the diamter in fill. (as eddie said)