Different uses for wood.

[starmac]

One of the long ago uses was  to build wooden culverts. When I first started running to Alaska all the culverts crossing the Alaska highway and Cassier were wooden. I looked at a few of these several times, they were built with steel bands, just like barrels or old water towers. A few years later they started digging them all up and replacing with steel culverts, they pulled them out in one piece and left them on the side of the road for quite a while. I stopped and checcked out several of them, and they would be 30 or 40 feet long and looked just as solid as the day they were put in, back in the late 40's. I thought it was funny that all of a sudden, they decided they needed replaced with modern galvanized culverts that would be junk in 20 years or so.

[drobertson]

What kind of wood are these made from? are they salvageable?

[Ox]

Buried wood lasts quite a while, I guess.  It's when it's at ground level and just an inch or two below that all the micro biological stuff happens and rots it.  That is if I'm remembering my learnings properly.....

Was it plain wood and still brown or did it look kinda black like they might have creosoted it?  What is the most rot resistant species over in that part of Canada?

[starmac]

I do not have a clue what kind of wood these were made of. They were reusable when they were pulled, or at least a lot of them were, but they have long since went away, hopefully they at least kept a few intact somewhere.

The main wood through there is spruce, but they built those roads in a hurry back during the war, I bet the culverts were hauled in from somewhere else.
It did not look as if they were creasoted, but may have been treated with something,not sure what all was used back then.

My grandad lived in an old house with a windmill for a well pump when I was a kid. It had probably a 2000 gallon tank sitting on top of a wellhouse, made of redwood, it was old at the time and not treated with anything. It has been 15 or more years since I have driven by that place, but that tank was still in use then.

[Stevem]

A lot of the old water tanks were built out of old growth redwood.  Some taken out of use, and new ones, were used for houses.  Old growth cedar was another choice.  Old growth D. fir was used for rain gutters and shakes!
The old timers knew which wood to use for what!  Much of that knowledge has been lost.
Cascara (west coast) was used for chisel handles and handles for post hole diggers and of course from the bark a laxative was derived, (Shittum berries)