Driveway arches

[ebrown1972]

How and what do most of you use to make driveway arches? I am considering doing this next year. Please provide a description of your driveway arches and photos if you have them please.  Thanks 

[Thebug]

https://www.planetchristmas.com/index.php?/forums/topic/58912-3-car-driveway-arch/&tab=comments#comment-660614

 

An idea

[Mr. P]

Here are my driveway arches. They are 35' long and over 10' tall, you can see the basketball hoop for height. They are freestanding 2 inch grey electrical pvc pipe with C9 pixabulbs.

 

 

Edited December 11, 2019 by Mr. P

[dibblejr]

Mr. P ~ Very nice. I am assuming you have rebar or something to hold them at the base.

My delivery drivers would surely destroy them.

JR

[Mr. P]

2 minutes ago, dibblejr said:

Mr. P ~ Very nice. I am assuming you have rebar or something to hold them at the base.

My delivery drivers would surely destroy them.

JR

I have a 12 inch section of 2.5 inch pvc pipe in the ground and the arch ends slip into them.

[dibblejr]

5 minutes ago, Mr. P said:

I have a 12 inch section of 2.5 inch pvc pipe in the ground and the arch ends slip into them.

Thanks. If I went with every expansion joint which are 10' apart in my driveway, I would need 18 arches. that's doable. Maybe in a couple years. Id probably just use nodes though. The driveway is the only undecorated part of my yard. The faces and circles take up most of it.

I do have my ccr megatree bolted in the upper driveway where it opens up to the garage.

I gues I could go with 16 and use 4 pixie 4's.

JR

Edited December 12, 2019 by dibblejr

[Mr. P]

11 minutes ago, dibblejr said:

 

I gues I could go with 16 and use 4 pixie 4's.

 

JR

I have one Falcon F4 with 100 pixels per port running these four. You can see it on the ground between the two center arches.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Mr. P

[Goldie1970]

I have 8 arches, 5 feet apart, that run on channels 1-8 of controller 2

4 foot of 1/2 inch rebar driven 2 feet into the ground on each side, and 3 sections of 1 inch pvc held together with 2 connector fittings. I don’t glue them together, tension seems to keep them in place. For the lights I have a 33 foot string wrapped around the post, held in place by 5-6 zip ties as you cross the span.  Takes about 90-120 minutes to set them up, total. I build the arch and then wrap the lights around a base about 25 times, then spread the string across the arch. Currently using g40 lights from sams club. They are 8 function lights but I just keep them on solid color

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by Goldie1970
Blurry pic

[airborneSRT]

40' arches: 2 20' 1-1/4" PVC with a coupling.  I slid the PVC over 3/4" EMT conduit 2' in the ground and 5' sticking up. Wrapped in 200 white and 200 blue led strings lights. 400 per arch. Learned this from Kevin, this year.

[dgrant]

I have one driveway arch only but lots of trouble putting it up. Its 3/4 inch pex tubing, white with intelligent pixel strip inside. I had to add three more pvc tubes to hold it up or let's say, make it stiff enough to not sag, sway and fall over. Plus I still had to add rope from the top center to get it to stabilize. I need something more stable but still wish to use pex because the pixels are protected and yet the light shines through. No way will I build more arches like this without finding a better way.

[Mr. P]

2 minutes ago, dgrant said:

I have one driveway arch only but lots of trouble putting it up. Its 3/4 inch pex tubing, white with intelligent pixel strip inside. I had to add three more pvc tubes to hold it up or let's say, make it stiff enough to not sag, sway and fall over. Plus I still had to add rope from the top center to get it to stabilize. I need something more stable but still wish to use pex because the pixels are protected and yet the light shines through. No way will I build more arches like this without finding a better way.

Pex just isn't great for long spans as it is too flexible especially when it warms up in the sun. It is perfect for smaller arches in the yard but when you start talking driveways and the much longer lengths thicker tubes are better.

[dgrant]

But the pex allows the lights to show through! I probably should find a way to bend EMT to the correct shape needed then add the pex to it. I use pex only with pvc cross supports for pex circles and they work just fine but only about 5 foot diameter.

Edited December 27, 2019 by dgrant

[Mr. P]

3 hours ago, dgrant said:

But the pex allows the lights to show through! I probably should find a way to bend EMT to the correct shape needed then add the pex to it. I use pex only with pvc cross supports for pex circles and they work just fine but only about 5 foot diameter.

Even in the smaller yard arches most will use the 2 inch pex. I can't imagine trying to use 3/4 over a driveway just way too flimsy without some major support.

[Holiday2NV]

I’m going to try reviving this thread, as I’m considering doing arches this year over my driveway. Am I seeing correctly that most would recommend 1 1/2 inch to 2 inch pvc electrical conduit?  How does that hold up in the wind? We have some pretty serious wind gusts in this area, so I need to take that into account. 

[dibblejr]

Someone I helped recently over the phone or zoom has huge driveway arches. If he is following me he may reply.

He is up north with a lot of wind.

One thing I do remember, do not use a lot of structure on the top, they will collapse. 

JR