Posts Tagged ‘culvert’
Culvert Replacement
While we have been busy tending to multiple maintenance projects on our buildings, the Township in which we reside has been preparing to replace the drainage culverts beneath our street. Yesterday just happened to be the day the work started.
Once they got underway, there was only one option available exiting our driveway. Our route south was closed for the day.
I have no idea how they measure the need for replacing culverts, but there is plenty of evidence that our street is deserving of resurfacing. I am hoping the culvert work is simply a matter of taking care of things below ground before upgrading the surface above.
The road crew guys are never timid about flaunting their command of the right-of-way footage. They didn’t hold back at all in their reshaping of the landscape area immediately beyond the culvert where it opened up on our side of the road. I think it deserves to have some rock added there, but since they never have included that in the past, I’m suspecting they won’t again this time.
It would be great if they could toss some grass seed over the area I mow and replace the gravel where the entrance to our hayfield gate is located. I don’t know whether I have any say in how it is finished, or not. Maybe if I tell them I am a descendent of three important Pierce County families of 150 years ago it could give me a little extra clout.
Of course, when they are on location, I am 65-miles to the west at the day-job, so there isn’t much chance we’ll talk.
Cyndie is up at the lake this week, so I’ll just have to settle with whatever the road crew sees fit to do.
It is their right-of-way after all. I trust they know what they are doing.
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Patch Worked
On Sunday, I just happened to stumble upon the fact that the snow-melt flowing down our drainage swale from beneath the driveway wasn’t coming out of the culvert.
“What the…!?”
I hustled to the other side of the driveway, and sure enough, the rushing water was disappearing beneath the mouth of the culvert. Nice.
I tell ya, property ownership is a trip.
I tried an on-the-fly patch in attempt to plug the opening enough to coerce the water to flow through the culvert, not beneath it. I dumped in sand and hay, plus tried stomping some of the residual snow to fill the void, but the water was moving with such momentum that my plug didn’t stop the flow.
I needed something impermeable. Old empty bags of feed came to mind, especially as they were also closest at hand. I cut open a bag and tried laying it as a sheet over the opening in hope the water pressure would push it in place to fill the opening beneath the mouth of the culvert.
The bag was more inclined to float.
I struggled to hurriedly push it below the freezing-cold water where I could cover it with hay and sand to redirect flow into the culvert. It started to work a little bit, so I worked harder to get the edges down to where water wouldn’t flow beneath it. Soon, it became obvious I needed to do something just upstream from there, so I added a second bag and placed a shovel on it to hold that one in place.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing, so I left it at that, fully expecting to find one or both of the bags out of place and wreaking havoc on desired flow sometime later.
Then yesterday’s rain storms arrived. Driving home, I noticed the ditches were filled with standing water and the creeks were running at full capacity with runoff. This time of year, rain water can’t soak into the soil because the ground is mostly frozen. I held little hope for the hastily placed feed bags at the mouth of our culvert.
Draining rain water was running at full tilt through the culvert under the road at the south border of our property when I arrived home. I stopped the car when I reached the problem culvert under our driveway and stepped out into the rain. First, I walked to the outlet side and was pleased to see heavy flow coming out of the culvert.
Crossing to the other side, I was amazed to find both bags still positioned where I had placed them. The one funneling water into the culvert had flopped over sideways a bit, but it seemed to be holding in place down below. I pulled it back again to catch as much water as possible and deemed it a success.
A more permanent fix will wait until there’s no water flowing, but for now, that crazy patch is certainly performing beyond my expectations. With the weather we are experiencing this winter, there is no telling when that opportunity for a permanent fix will arrive.
It will be no surprise to me if I find one or both of those bags down stream before their services are no longer needed. Stay tuned for further developments.
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Relative Something 