DIY culvert

[Jim Timber]

Looking at your follow up pics, the dirt you have on the barrels now is sufficient for probably a well-loaded pickup, with one caveat - the ground can't be saturated. Had you filled over the barrels with crushed rock (needs the jagged edges to interlock and hold the weight), you'd be set regardless of moisture content.

Water in the dirt acts like lube. Glacial till like you (and I) have acts like greased ball bearings when there's water present.

 

[mglenn005]

We are cool man. I probably woke up on the wrong side of the bed and just couldn’t tell if the whole post had a positive or negative lean to it and I sided on the negative side.

I trust your concrete calculations as I don’t have much experience with that other than securing fence posts. The arch method would be cool. If you do it, post it on here. I’d be interested in following it.

As far as my solution, I have some thoughts on making it stronger (potentially vehicle safe) by doubling (of tripling) the wall thickness. Slice some in half, hot dog style, and screw them together with overlapped seams.

In reality, why can’t 12” and larger culverts not be made out of gold. Those things hurt the wallet.


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Here is one that is $5.40/foot, already engineered for for heavy loads ... Double Wall Culvert

Why reinvent the wheel?

That is a good price, however, I don’t have a Menards nearby. I think that is a Midwest store, and not a south store. On our place, we deal with a lot of water runoff due to terrain features. In fact, prior to owning the property, a 24” metal culvert was ripped out from a storm (I dunno how it was installed, maybe poorly). Most of our Culverts on our main road require 24” or larger culverts (which are very pricey). For heavy traffic areas, we would put in a true culvert.

A cheap alternative to a $500-1000 culvert for minimal traffic is worthwhile in my book.



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[John-W-WI]

Here is one that is $5.40/foot, already engineered for for heavy loads ... Double Wall Culvert

I've honestly never looked at the pricing of culverts - never needed one. I always assumed they were expensive. I'm surprised that big of a culvert is that affordable. Hope I never need one!

-John