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Design

We visited Lowe’s and asked them to draw us up the plans for a deck. A deck 20 feet long, 4 feet wide, with no middle supports. They gave some nice detailed plans, a list of materials and a cost list. Too bad it was all unworkable. The individual using the CAD program lacked experience, the program insisted on putting in supports every 10 feet, and he said just ignore the support in the middle. The plans called for a single 20 foot long 2 x 10 and obviously that would not be substantial enough to be safe. At the right are the plans they drew up for us. More information click here
We then bought books in an attempt to gain some knowledge or information that would help us out. We bought the following books:
• Modern Timber Engineering (1942)
• Fences, Gates, and Bridges (1887)
• The Complete Guide to Trail Building and Maintenance (1981).
These books were very helpful and we decided to design the bridge ourselves.