DIY Pallet Bridge

4 Materials

4 Hours

Easy

Our foot trail crosses a small creek which made it unusable parts of the year. A few pallets, beams, and precast pier blocks made an easy foot bridge and allows us to use the trail year-round while keeping our feet dry (although the kids seem to still end up in the mud ). We've even seen deer crossing on our bridge.

Be sure to watch the video at the end of this post for a project time lapse.

Scroll down to see all steps in this project and a time-lapse video.

Step 1: Use a shovel to clear away soft topsoil and clear a flat area. Place a pier block on the cleared areas. For maximum bridge height, measure your beams and place the piers blocks near where the beams will end and estimate the width.

Step 2: Set the beams and attach to the pier block flange using nails. The beams should be shimmed with boards so that they are approximately level.

Step 3: Attach the pallets to the beams. We set our pallets so that the outside 2x4's are flush with the beams. We also left enough room on each end for a 2x6 step.

Step 4: Add a rail to the bridge by cutting two pallets in half and attaching the halves to the beam and deck pallets using nails. The nails have to be driven at an angle.

Step 5: Attach a 2x6 to the beams at each end, if necessary. We didn't plan ahead for this step and had to make it work in a less than ideal way. Ideally your step would bear on the beam instead of being attached to the bottom of the beam.

The primary purpose of this project was to teach the kids how to use tools, especially a tape measure. Our video does include a time lapse of the entire project. Time lapse is 63 seconds into the video.

We want to help you DIY, so some of the materials in this post are linked to sellers. Just so you know, Hometalk may collect a small share of sales from the links on this page.

Several concerned comments on this project have asked if you could twist your ankle between the pallet boards. You can see here that we used pallets that are more sturdy than the average pallet and have smaller gaps. My daughter may not get her boots on the right feet but she's not going to fall between boards.

3 questions

Hod12678349
on Oct 16, 2017
Where do you get your pallets,how much do you. Pay for them
1
Answer this
- Krystal Brown
  30 minutes ago
  Home Depot often will give them away just ask
Kelly-n-Tony
on Oct 16, 2017
You list the cost as $5, is that correct?
1
Answer this
- Hair in the Air
  on Oct 18, 2017
  For our project most of our materials were recycled lumber/pallets/pier pads from a deck we dismantled. So it actually cost us less than $5. Many of these items could possibly be found on your local Craigslist free listings. So yes, for us the cost was $5 or less.
  2
Vic24090418
on Oct 20, 2017
How did you transport the pallets? Wooden pallets tend to break when they are old; not only that, the spaces in between are very wide. This project doesn't seem very safe.
2
Answer this
- Hair in the Air
  on Nov 2, 2017
  See added photo of board spacing.
  1

4 of 24 comments

See previous

Ter11837984
on Oct 17, 2017
The way the kids helped is amazing. I taught kindergarten and 1st grade for 26 yrs. I could always tell the children whose parents were involved in their projects. Keep up the great job of raising them with life skills.

Girls you did a fantastic job of making the bridge. Love what you did to help your parents. Bet they couldn't have done the bridge without your help.
2
- Hair in the Air
  on Oct 18, 2017
  Thanks. The kids loved your comments (especially because you used emoji). We are homeschooling our girls and try to incorporate projects like this into their learning on a regular basis.
  1
Jane
on Oct 18, 2017
Be super careful when using pallets that will be walked on or stood on. Make sure that your feet won't fit it in between the boards. Sideways as well as length ways. I was standing on a pallet at work one day (as we had all done many times) . My foot turned sideways and slipped into the space between the boards on the palled causing me to fall and sprain my ankle. I can just see these childrens little feet slipping in between the boards.
- Hair in the Air
  on Nov 2, 2017
  See added photo.