Art by Gary Blomgren
Volume 34 Issue 4
Fall ~ 2024
Free • Since 1990
Covered Bridge Travel Lanes Replaced
Photo by Roger Turner
By Roger Turner
Photo by Lee Chamberlin
The Finishline crew starts installing the new planks from the east side of the bridge
The town crew finishes the process by pegging the countersink holes.
My first ride over the newly-replaced driving surface of the covered bridge this past summer? Well, I drive through the bridge frequently, often multiple trips a day. And that first ride when the bridge reopened seemed very smooth, smoother than usual, and I wondered if I was just imagining if it felt that way, or if in fact it could actually could have been smoother. I looked into the matter by speaking with road foreman Lee Chamberlin. Replacing the bridge deck was always a significant project, but in 2009 when it last needed to be done, Mike Renaud of Renaud Brothers, who had been contracted to do the job, came up with a plan to focus on the travel lanes where the wear was occurring, rather than the entire deck. This approach limited the area of the deck which needed to be replaced for that job, and would result in simpler future projects. The Renaud crew marked out 40-inch-wide travel lanes on each side of the bridge deck, and then used an asphalt grinder to create two channels two and a half inches deep. For about eight feet at each end of the bridge the channels were expanded to the full width of the deck between the elevated lane bumpers. Then three-inch thick oak planking was bolted into the channels. The bolts were countersunk, meaning the top of the bolts were screwed into a hole which leaves the top of the bolt below the surface of the wood, and the recessed bolt heads were then covered by pegs hammered over them into the countersink holes. This results in a nice smooth, travel surface. Thereafter, when the travel lanes become worn down, only the oak planks, not the full deck, need to be replaced. About four years ago Lee noticed that the travel lanes were getting worn down enough so that some of the bolts were starting to appear in the countersink holes. He informed the selectboard that the surface would need to be replaced in the next three to four years and advised them to start putting money aside for the project. “The original quote for a crew doing the whole job was $90,000, so we started saving that up. But I thought we could do it cheaper,” Lee told me. “I don’t know what a bid would have been today.” To do it cheaper, Lee devised a plan of splitting the work up between the town road crew and a contractor, and having the town purchase the materials directly. He determined they needed about 6,000 feet of 3x8 white oak planks, which he bought from and had delivered by Allard Lumber. Dan Jenks of Finishline Construction, a Dummerston business, got the contract for the work. Then, on Monday July 29th, the bridge was closed and the town crew went to work. They removed 3,100 bolts from the original planks, used pry bars to pry up the lumber, then hauled it away. The wood was wet and about one and a half times as heavy as its original weight. The crew then had to clean the channel and remove any bolts that had broken off. continued on page 11