DIY culvert

mglenn005

5 year old buck +
Need to cross a ditch and have spare 55 gal drums on hand. Just cost us the price of the 2x4x10’ PT. Not meant for heavy loads, such as tractors or trucks, but it will do just fine for atvs.

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Looks good. I hope it holds well for yas. How do you like the cabelas seeder? I haven't seen that one.
 
Looks good. I hope it holds well for yas. How do you like the cabelas seeder? I haven't seen that one.

If it doesn’t hold well, it was only $15 and about 2 hours to build and install.

That seeder is durable. I put 1000# (50-80# at a time) of seed through it every fall. I don’t put quite as much through it during the spring/summer. It also gets used for fertilizer (1/4 - 1/2 ton each year). We try to clean it good after a fertilizer run, but it still gets stuck. Some lubricant and TLC and it gets back to running just fine. We replaced the motor 2 years ago after 7 years of owning it.


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Looks good. I hope it holds well for yas. How do you like the cabelas seeder? I haven't seen that one.

It’s actually a rear mounted seeder that I front mount. I used to run 100# of fertilizer in it, but rough fields and heavy loads causes my rear rack to dip down. No matter how much I straighten the rack and tighten it down, it cannot support that spreader anymore.


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just absolutely love man how we adapt and overcome to brilliantly solve with what we have laying around the farm to ingeniously repurpose it to something of beauty. LOVE IT.
 
I like it! It sure should work and way cheaper than double walled pipe.
 
just absolutely love man how we adapt and overcome to brilliantly solve with what we have laying around the farm to ingeniously repurpose it to something of beauty. LOVE IT.

If the supply of barrel is large enough, you could cut the ends of extra, split down the middle and then overlap the seams and secure with screws. I believe it would be even stronger.


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Good temporary solution ... it will work till it won't.

Barrels were designed to address uniform outward pressure ... constant uniform tension. Inward local compression should be interesting ... looking forward to the "after" photos ...
 
I like it! its kind of a duh moment for me... a good obvious solution that I have over looked... I have a few poly barrels and will give this a try!
 
Brings a tear of joy to this east texas bubba

bill
 
We’ve gotten 2-3 inches of rain on the farm since installing the DIY culvert, so I am anxious to see how well it held up. Unfortunately, it will be a few more weeks before I head back down there.


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I Would be concerned that the gaps will leak and erode the dirt away and washing it out.

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I think he'll be fine as long as he has the female end pointing downstream.
 
I Would be concerned that the gaps will leak and erode the dirt away and washing it out.

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The bottom side of the diy culvert is much cleaner with respect to gaps. We didn’t realize it until we built it that all barrels are slightly different, so you need to get barrels from the same source of fluid/material.


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A few bags of sack-crete and your barrels would just be a left-in-place form. In fact, a 6" diameter pvc pipe would've done that job.

Buried deep enough, the pipe doesn't see much load anyway.
 
A few bags of sack-crete and your barrels would just be a left-in-place form. In fact, a 6" diameter pvc pipe would've done that job.

Buried deep enough, the pipe doesn't see much load anyway.

This response comes off as passive aggressive. I don’t know if you are a culvert dealer or something. But yes, concrete would make it stronger. It would require more than a few bags (which is $$$) in my opinion. While a 6” pipe could transfer water, you must consider the volume of water. For this ditch, it would be likely that water would back up, creating pressure, which would cause high water velocity on the downside. That’s erosion and I don’t want that.

This whole post is for a cheap solution with minimal traffic. It’s not meant for trucks, tractors, dozers, etc.

Now to the update:
We have had probably 25” of rain go through our culvert. Multiple times we have had 5” of rain in 1 day or 2-3” in an hour. It has held up well. The dirt surrounding the DIY culvert has settled and it’s flowing well. The first picture is the entrance, followed by two picture of the exit. I’m pretty happy with the DIY culvert.
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Now to the update:
We have had probably 25” of rain go through our culvert. Multiple times we have had 5” of rain in 1 day or 2-3” in an hour. It has held up well. The dirt surrounding the DIY culvert has settled and it’s flowing well. The first picture is the entrance, followed by two picture of the exit. I’m pretty happy with the DIY culvert.

I don't think JT was trying to come on too strong.

Glad it's holding up. Slick solution to a complicated problem.

-John
 
Lol If I was going to tear into you, you'd know it.

The volume of a cylinder the size of your barrels is about 1/3 cubic yard, so yes, that's a lot of bags. But we're not worried about the whole thing, just the outside; and then for simplicity sake we only really need an arch so we can skip pouring the bottom half of the tube as well.

4" would handle automotive traffic without any earthen cover, so really you'd only need a light shell to solidify the barrels into a continuous bridge, and I maintain that can be done with just a few bags.

What's funny is my post wasn't even a critique of your solution. Just thinking of other cheap ways to get it done as I too have seasonal water conveyence needs and don't really need another $200 commercial culvert to handle the task.

I'm glad it's working for you. Really, I am. ;)
 
Lol If I was going to tear into you, you'd know it.

The volume of a cylinder the size of your barrels is about 1/3 cubic yard, so yes, that's a lot of bags. But we're not worried about the whole thing, just the outside; and then for simplicity sake we only really need an arch so we can skip pouring the bottom half of the tube as well.

4" would handle automotive traffic without any earthen cover, so really you'd only need a light shell to solidify the barrels into a continuous bridge, and I maintain that can be done with just a few bags.

What's funny is my post wasn't even a critique of your solution. Just thinking of other cheap ways to get it done as I too have seasonal water conveyence needs and don't really need another $200 commercial culvert to handle the task.

I'm glad it's working for you. Really, I am. ;)

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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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?
 
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