Building an Arena (possibly) - questions

P

Pink's lady

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This is all very tentitive but I'm considering getting a proper arena built in Pink's feild. There are a few of us considering it and willing to split the price but it needs to be as cheap as possible.

The 'stables' Pink's kept at is really just a barn and large field owned by a little old lady who likes having horses outside her window. Her son is a builder/joiner/all round handy man and is willing to do the work cheaply/buy the stuff trade price.

Anyways, the patch we want to build it on is being used as a 25mx50m grass school at the moment is the highest part of the feild, extremely well drained and totally level. Lucky us :D But the grass can't stand up to much use during the winter, so we'd like an all weather suface put down.

I'd like some feed back on our (very tentitive) plans:

- There will be a 2ft ditch dug all the way around the arena and back-filled with large diameter hardcore. This will be cheap but very effective drainage and shouldn't take too long with the right machiney (which the son has). There might possibley be (depending on difficulty) gradiated guttering at the bottom of the ditches to let the water run off down the hill.

- There will be hard-core laid down, over some cheap, highly water-permiable textile (just to stop it compressing into the ground) with embedded gradiated drainage pipes in the slightly damper end, running into the ditches.

Over that will be the surface (with or without a membrane between)

Oh, and of course, fences and kick boards.

Questions - will we need a membrane between the surface and hardcore. Preferably not (too expensive :rolleyes: )

What's the best surface? It'll be sand with rubber probably, but what type of sand? Does anyone know of a site that specifies the best sand type/size. And any cheap chopped rubber suppliers in scotland?

And how deep should the hardcore be? And the surface?

Anything else I've missed? And any good 'how to...' sites/books to have a look at? I want to get exact plans drawn up before we even consider it properly.

I know that good drainage is basically the be all and end of of a good outdoor school so that will be the biggest importance. However, it'll be the suface that's the most expensive as the drainage just takes good planning, a bit of hard work and a lot of hardcore. And then Pink has NO excuse not to be well-schooled ;)
 
Be very careful about planning permission!

Local authorities can be very funny about them. A friend had terrible bother with them!
 
ah, I was wondering if that would be a problem. hum. I'll need to find out.
 
Wally said:
Be very careful about planning permission!

Local authorities can be very funny about them. A friend had terrible bother with them!
Click to expand...

I agree, after a lot of hassle from the local council, we've finally been able to have an all weather 50' round pen constructed.
Initially, we where looking at a rubber/sand surface for the pen but the planning office ruled this out because of the rubber contents being harmful to the environment and the new rules regarding the disposal of it at landfill sites.
After a lot of research we eventually decided to opt for bark free woodfibre, which the council fully approved because of it being enviromental friendly. We can highly recommed http://ransfords.co.uk if your local authority object to a rubber based surface. :)
 
At my work we find membranes are useless because they dont let the water away fast enough and get clogged up so we add a few inches of grit on top of the hardcore/gravel to act as the filter, then we put our base on the top of this. Membranes can also come loose and start poking through the surface so horses could trip. You have to be careful how deep you make the surface as it could be too heavy for horses legs. You need to really have silicon sand/rubber as it doesn't freeze as much . A local farmer near me built one using sharp sand which was alright and cheap but did compact a bit so had to be rotovated now and again. I am no expert so you should really phone around for advice. Get a copy of equi ads they have adverts for rubber. Have a look here http://www.jacksonarenas.com/construct.html
 
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We built (my Dad did all the work) a menage at the end of last year and its superb. We found planning permission was ok to get but they were funny about Lighting. They did a couple of site visits and it did take a while to get but we have pain in the butt neighbours so no doubt that didnt help!
We did a lot of research into Membranes but a lot of the problem we found was as someone else has said if the holes start to get blocked it can stop drainage and also if the hooves come into contact with it, it can damage it.
I think you will need to put draininage across the menage too - we did this and although its more effort and hardcore it was wellworth it. We have the drains at ground level so the menage is actually above ground level (helping draining).
The basic build of ours is we have ditches running diagonaly accross the school into the side ditches filled with hardcore and then we have hardcore accross the whole surface. This was then rolled and then we have Tarmac on top (rolled again) -this was recommended to us and is proving very good.
On top of that we have 4" of Silica Sand and then 2" of rubber I think there are better surfaces out there but like you money was a factor for us and this was one of the cheaper options. We bought our sand from (they have a sale on at the moment actually).

Equestrian grade Silica Sand is the sand you need to use, It is not as heavy going as normal sand and ours has only frozen a couple of times.

One really obvious thing that we didnt think of at the time is we had our fencing done by contractors but they put the rails on the outside of the school!! So we have had to put rails on the inside too to stop you banging your legs!!.

If you think of any questions feel free to ask me as I may know from experience of building ours

I am not sure how you put links on!! So hopefully these will work there are some really usefull sites on the net

http://www.ransfords.co.uk/equine_all_weather.htm

http://www.jacksonarenas.com/construct.html
 
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The sand used around here is called 'glacier sand' but it could go by a different name over there. The thing is that the sand particles should be angular instead of spherical. Angular sand particles will cushion but then stack into each other on impact. Sand with spherical particles will just be hard on the ligaments- especially if you are really planning on making it a whole 6 inches deep.
I liked Cherry Hill's site on footing. You can also check out her page on arena construction: http://www.horsekeeping.com/horse_facilities/footing_1.htm
 
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