Culvert maintenance?

[In.the.Piñons]

I've got six smaller culverts (10-12") and four larger ones (eyeballing them at 3-4ft) on my property.

They are all clear, but I was thinking about putting some galvanized chain through them and anchoring it at both ends with some rebar. The idea being that if it gets jammed up, I can pull a tire through.

Anyone else do this? Seems like it would be a pitta to get a culvert unclogged if you didn't already have the chain there ready to go. What sized chain did you use?

 

[dodge man]

I’m of the school “if ain’t broke don’t fix it”. I probably wouldn’t do that unless you start to see them plugging up.

 

[ponytug]

Unless I knew a lot about how the culvert was installed, and what condition it was currently in, I wouldn't do that. Leaving a chain in is just asking for extra wear and corrosion in my book.

All the best,

Peter

 

[Gee Ray]

I’m a tightwad. I wouldn’t invest that much money into chain just to have it lay around. Instead I would. salvage some old waterline (pipe) that I could drive through a culvert that is plugged and use it to pull the chain through.

More importantly, I would maintain the drainage side of the culvert so that the water can run through and avoid the plugs all together. Might also require some maintenance on the uphill side to eliminate things that might plug up the culvert.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

 

[Thomas]

Neighbor uses old guard rail cable and fasten tire to cable,with good rain he'll pull the tire thru couple times before water freezes.

 

[Too many Kubotas]

Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but while I understand why silt settles in the culverts when I mostly block them (to use the water for irrigation), I don't understand why the silt doesn't wash away once the gates are opened again.

Basically, the mound inside starts about a foot behind the gate, then ends maybe two feet from the end of it.

Any ideas, please?

 

[ponytug]

Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but while I understand why silt settles in the culverts when I mostly block them (to use the water for irrigation), I don't understand why the silt doesn't wash away once the gates are opened again.

Basically, the mound inside starts about a foot behind the gate, then ends maybe two feet from the end of it.

Any ideas, please?

Short answer is water velocity and how the speed greatly affects the amount of sediment that can be carried.

When the water is shallow, and moving quickly, the sediment load varies at somewhere between the velocity to the fourth and sixth power. However, once there is a barrier, e.g. your mound, the water slows down and drops at least some of the sediment it has, so your mound becomes self sustaining.

However, that is a gross oversimplification because a great deal depends on the density of the particles, their cohesiveness, and their friction with the channel bed as well as the water velocity.

Cutting a channel through the mound would increase the water velocity, and remove some (more) sediment.

Lots here if you are curious;

https://web.eng.fiu.edu/arleon/courses/Open_Channel/Lectures/Sediment_Transport.pdf

All the best,

Peter

 

[CalG]

Short answer is water velocity and how the speed greatly affects the amount of sediment that can be carried.

When the water is shallow, and moving quickly, the sediment load varies at somewhere between the velocity to the fourth and sixth power. However, once there is a barrier, e.g. your mound, the water slows down and drops at least some of the sediment it has, so your mound becomes self sustaining.

However, that is a gross oversimplification because a great deal depends on the density of the particles, their cohesiveness, and their friction with the channel bed as well as the water velocity.

Cutting a channel through the mound would increase the water velocity, and remove some (more) sediment.

Lots here if you are curious;

https://web.eng.fiu.edu/arleon/courses/Open_Channel/Lectures/Sediment_Transport.pdf

All the best,

Peter

When setting drain pipe, "Self scouring" is the goal.

1/4 inch per foot? Or something like that. I don't recall at the moment.

 

[dodge man]

If the culvert has enough grade it will be self cleaning but you to look at the ditch also. It doesn’t do any good if the grade is theoretically enough to keep the culvert clean if the ditch is so flat the water won’t flow fast enough downstream from the culvert.

 

[woody]

every so often I will scope out a 6 to 12 inch hole at the inlet, water fills the hole and drops it's sediment and moves on, depends on how much sediment as to how often you have to do it. I may only do it once a year so it's not a big deal