Oh, just a little project I took on to spruce up the neighborhood
a little. We had a muddy little creek that ran at the bottom of the
best set of trails I've ever seen in a neighborhood. The bottom of
the hill is a great sliding hill, except for the sudden stop in the creekbed.
Also ATVs and snowmobiles go up through there. We had previously
put down wooden pallets and such to try to keep from tearing up the creek,
but that created a muddy mess, and the erosion to the bank was getting
worse and worse. I had considered building a really good bridge before,
but couldn't justify donating over $600 to the cause. A neighbor
had a bunch of old decking and bricks, and that would have cost me over
$200 to buy new. Suddenly, the $400 figure for the new material remaining
was reasonable. First the drawings of the bridge, created by my three
dimensional, parametric driven furniture design program.
The only differences in these drawings and the real thing
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1) The bridge sits at an angle up the hill, but the posts
are still vertical.
2) The snowcatcher pieces along the top sides are tapered at the ends flush to the deck ends over 3 feet at both ends so that no one will accidentally teebone into the ends.
3) The ends of the bridge are buried 10 & 1/2 inches so that the decking is flush with the earth.
4) Posts are not all 6 feet long due to angle of bridge and insurmountable rocks/tree trunks, etc. in the earth.
5) The posts are sandwiched between two beams, and two 8" x 1/2" galvanized bolts are used to hold the beams to the posts.
Bridge Statistics
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Walking width between snowcatchers: 47.5 inches
Walking length: 24 feet
Rise: about 2 & 1/2 feet
Carrying capacity: At least a full 4 feet heavy snow
load, and two snowmobiles and riders.
Vertical dimension of 6 carrying beams: 9.5 inches (2x10's)
Weight of lumber: appx 1530 lbs
Number of stainless steel decking screws: 350
Amount of nails holding beam sister plates and snow catcher
sides: 5 lbs of three inch stainless steel spiral nails
Number of bricks that line the steep slope for erosion
control: 200
Total construction time: 27 hours
Materials:
All the posts and beams and snowcatcher were new P.T.
material.
The old decking and old bricks were donated by a neighbor
who had ripped out an old wooden sidewalk and removed an old brick structure,
and was glad not to have to dispose of the rubbish.
Here are the photographs of the deck, taken before decking
and after putting on the decking.
