setting a cattle guard?

[Brute 23]

Haven't experienced a clean out yet but, it seems that the cattle guard itself will come out the same way it went in. I position my FEL bucket flat over the first few guard rails (over the first half) and about an inch above, wrap chain around two of the bars and back up over the bucket (did this on both ends of the bucket), then lift it straight up. You can then reverse the tractor to get the guard out the way for clean up and then set it back in place after your done. The concrete beams should stay where they were, in theory anyway.

If the fence is offset to one side or the other you can run your bucket right between them. If the fence goes to the center you better have a gate on one side. It needs a post welded to the cattle guard so when you lift the CG out you can flip the gate open and clean it from that side. If not you are doing it by hand.

At best... if you put thought in to it... its a days work. In my world time has a cost. In the O&G business and crew to do that will cost $1-2K... even if I do it myself with a helper it still will cost more than stringing out some more gravel.

But when you do things for family they do it the cheapest way at the monent because if it needs to be fixed out cleaned out... the guilt you back in to doing it... for lower than market wages. Most of us have all been there. ;-)

 

[John SD]

I'm assuming this is a private road, not subject to county/township/USFS specs on cattle guards.

IMO, based on that the cheapest route would be to use RR ties. Most durable than ties and easier than pouring concrete on site would be the store bought precast concrete bases pictured. I've also seen the welded steel footings, which IIRC are approved for govt specs.

If it was me, I would take the work out of it. Get the precast bases and have the local backhoe guy come to install the cattle guard. Shouldn't cost a fortune if he can work it out with something else he is doing that day.

Last summer the local backhoe guy here stopped on his way home from another job and replaced a 32' long 16" steel culvert in the township road in front of my house.

Backhoe guy charged $150. Don't remember what new culvert cost. I picked it up at county road shop. County guys were great. Township picked up the tab for the culvert and the backhoe guy. I donated hauling the culvert on my trailer 70 miles from the county shop.

 

[greybeard]

It's in. Top of pipes to bottom of the pit is 14". Won't be hard to clean out at all--sister has a little Kubota compact tractor with a fel on it and the bucket fits between the beams with 3" to spare on each side.
Yes--private iron ore road 1800' long.
I could not put it in the fenceline/gate. The gate is only 14' wide, cg is 18' 6" overall length, there's a power pole a couple of feet down from the gate post and there are underground phone and water lines running just inside the gate opening. I just dropped down the road 24' and installed it there, which means I'll have to run a stub fence down the side of the road and over to the cg when the weather clears. That will give her room to get thru the original gateway and be able to close the gate without her having to walk on the cattle guard. I'll put a 12' gate in the stub fence so they can get in or out should something happen to the cg. The road is their only way in or out.
She did not want to buy the concrete beams, so I set it on two 10x10x20'' creosoted timbers that came off a railway bridge dad and I tore down some years ago. I had to cut them to length and they are rock solid and still oozing creosote. They will last the rest of sister's life and probably mine as well. I 'could' have chain sawed an "L" shape into the timbers but didn't want to open the beams up to moisture.