Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Finally Built a Bridge

Haven't posted in a while but couldn't help but show pictures of my Bridge. I have talked about doing this for years and finally decided to do it 2 weeks before my daughters open house. Got it done and 8:30am on the day of her open house.
BEFORE


AFTER

Ah yes...the rainbow bridge.
It looks awesome, Fozzy!
How 'bout the construction spec's, including time to build and the unexpected difficulties encountered during construction/installation.
All green-treat, I presume...?

Yup, all treated lumber. I will probably stain or thompsonize in about a month. We started the footings on Saturday morning the 14th, three guys total, and finished the whole thing on Saturday Morning the 21st. The footings took all day saturday. 42 80# bags of quikcrete. The arches (3) of the bridge were done by tuesday night and moved into place. The first arch took almost all day sunday just trying to figure out how it all went together. The next two took about 2 hours each. Wednesday I was on my own and leveled and shimmed, Thursday I decked it, and Friday it was the railing with the spindles being done Saturday morning. Total cost just a tad over $1000.00 for a span of 28 feet. No real problems encountered other than someone not reading the plans correctly on the joists. Also we had a swim raft the we had under the arches so they could be intalled. If we didn't have the raft, I dont think this could of been done unless it was winter.

Beautiful bridge! Congratulations!

Nice job. That looks really nice. You sound like me in that I have been "planning" to build a bridge to cross my creek for about 3 years now.

Can you give some details on the footings? How deep? Rebar? Forms? Did you just mix the concrete up in a wheelbarrow?

Thanks.

That looks awesome can you give us the plans and show how to do the footings?

Footings 63" wide with two 6" steps. Main part of footing is about 2 feet deep with two post holes going deeper. Soil this is built on is really mostly fill so the back of both footings were bunkered with approx. 6 bags of concrete and 6 basketball to beachball sized boulders. Most of the load is lateral and this was sufficent to make it really stiff. Here are some photos of footings and arches. We used re-bar we had laying around put in vertically (about 6 pieces 4 feet long driven into ground) and 1 layer of wire mesh in upper 3" of each step. Arches are NOT actually attached to the footings, just sitting on them with 16 ga. galv straps to isolate the wood from the concrete.

The plans area available from rainbow bridge. Do a google search for it. I don't know if I could direct link so I didn't. He has varying different arch lengths and wood sizes to choose from and answers all your questions without any hassle. (trust me I asked alot) Some of the plans have a higher arch than others depending on personal preference and soil conditions. Mine is 2' 7" of vertical arch rise in the center measured from the base of arch)

Fozzy...
I think this deserves a place in the Human Habitat thread . I know we have discussed the rainbow bridge before, but this is the first time I can remember a PB brethren executing construction and installation. It's a great example of how to traverse a smaller ravine or draw in style.
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Please keep the details of construction with the post. I bet there will be more rainbow bridges built by forum members.
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...again: Great Job!

Thanks for the compliment Brettski! It means alot. I have no idea how to move the thread or do I just repost the applicable information in that thread?

You could take the easy route and just link this thread, but it means so much more to have pics on the Hum Hab thread....so...the happy median might be to make a new post on Hum Hab thread with 2 or 3 of your pics, some basic info, and then point back to THIS thread for the details.
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...did that make sense?