arena base

[IrishDQ]

anyone who's done an arena, what sort of base did you do?

if the land already has drainage, would it be possible to do something like layering plastic (with holes in it, the special heavy duty stuff) then gravel then more plastic and then the sand on top of that? without having to dig everything up.

 

[Kay2]

I have no idea! I'm using a contrctor to do mine and wouldn't feel comfortable doing it myself even if I was able to hire the right machines. Is too big a job to do wrong and to then have to re-do in a year or something I think.
Are there any people locally who have built an arena that you could speak to? Or an agricultural contractor who at least wont charge a fortune for doing drainage etc unlike some of the specialist horse arena companies.....

 

[IrishDQ]

well it's sort of extremes, the only people I know of either have a really grand indoor arena, competition size and the other only have a muddy-sandy thing which I think is just sand on top of what used to be grass lol.

we were thinking of hiring a mini digger.

 

[BIrish]

When we were looking for a house an arena wasn't top of the list as we would have built if neccessary.

We asked a lot of questions and the cheapest way to do it (and have a rideable area in wet weather) was

Dig in a foundation hole to roughly 2ft deep, add a layer of hardcore with drainage pipes on herringbone ontop, followed by layer of road scalpings (not the soft top layer of tarmac, the bottom "grainy" layer) followed by Equisand and a light topdress of rubber.

I would'nt hold up to very high usuage but would be ok for light use. We know a few people with this kind of build and their schools seem ok. Luckily our house came with an arena so saved us the bother ..

If you just dig a hole, throw some plastic and a surface on it'll be a total waste of money as it'll become totally unrideable.

 

[cinammontoast]

Jude, clear your pms!

 

[Clava]

There is a system of laying a special drainage membrane down on top of good draining land, then the surface on top of that. I have their trade lit somewhere if you want to pm me for details. Their total cost of a 20 x 40 arena is about £6000, but wood chip. Personally although they send you a long list of happy customers I'm not sure how long this system would last...

 

[BIrish]

Jude, clear your pms!

H'ok... doing it now..

 

[BIrish]

Dunnit.

 

[IrishDQ]

Thanks, BIrish, any idea of the rough cost of doing something like that? I definetly can't afford £6k anyway! do you need silica sand? is that sort of got gravel mixed in? or can you use any sand if it's only for light use?

 

[Clava]

All the traditional digging out and forming a proper drainage subbase cost a lot more than 6K which is probably why this surface system has sold well (I just don't think it will last very long)

 

[Rips]

I know people who originally built a makeshift school, the had use of heavy machinery and did the best job they could, they dug up and laid a hardcore foundation, a layer of finer gravel and it had great drainage. They got proper sand for the top surface. It always ran very deep but it was okay for about 6/8months, before the gravel started appearing through the sand surface. Once the weather got wet then, they started having sinkholes appearing in it.

They put up with it for a furthur 6months and then did a better job.

 

[Trewsers]

anyone who's done an arena, what sort of base did you do?

if the land already has drainage, would it be possible to do something like layering plastic (with holes in it, the special heavy duty stuff) then gravel then more plastic and then the sand on top of that? without having to dig everything up.

Well, so far ours has gone like this: dig out and flatten the area to be used, then dig the drains in, layer with clean stone (this is what our contractors have told me) and then put a layer of teram down (plastic membrane stuff) then your final top surface. Ours isn't finished but the other week we made a "mini" school - just to be going on with. Now, that has naturally good drainage - and its only a short term(ish) option for us to turn Joe out in now and again, so we had it flattened, stoned and then a nice deep surface of normal mix sand put on top. Its being fenced tomorrow all being well (yaye!). I think the drains are the important thing with the arenas - you've got to make sure they work as it won't matter what you put on top if the drains are rubbish.

 

[IrishDQ]

Thanks

at the moment the area where I want it to go is half grass and half gravel, the grass bit being about 4" higher than the gravel part. what we were going to do is hopefully keep the grass intact and move it to a different part rather than just ploughing it up as it cost quite a bit originally to plough and seed the place. so, I suppose when the grass it gone it would be a level, gravelly space to start off. would that still have to be dug down another 2' if there was already a solid gravel base with drainage underneath that? (we put drainage down before the grass years ago in that area)

I thought seeing as there is already drainage and gravel we wouldn't have to do it again and could just put down the plastic mebrane and then the surface on top of the gravel and drainage that is already there.

 

[IrishDQ]

I've done a plan lol hopefully make it a bit clearer.

idea is:
scrape grass off of area that already has drainage + stone to make it level with gravelled area, then in the back part where there is no stones dig down a bit and add a couple of drainage pipes, then fill in with gravel. put layer of gravel down, cover with heavy duty plastic membrane, the landscaping stuff? and then cover with layer of silica sand. Would this work?

The place I'm at now I think the sand is just on top of flint and it seems fine, just gets a bit of surface water after rain but still perfectly usable but obviously I want it to be as good as possible but still not cost the earth. It will cost me approx. €150 for fencing, around another couple of hundred for sand and gravel plus around €100 a day to hire a mini digger. not sure how much the drainage pipes or plastic membrane cost, will have to enquire about that.

anyway, the "diagram":