BlissfulJumper
Equestrian :)
How did you guys build up your arena footing? Base materials? and then the top layer?
Arena footing
- Thread starter BlissfulJumper
- Start date
fredsaid2
New Member
The book "Under Foot" says to dig out the top soil, build up 4-6" of road dense packed screenings (stone dust) sloped for drainage and add desired inches of sand, rubber footing or the combination you please. The stone dust layer should be basically impervious to water providing a solid base for water to run off leaving your sand layer dry. Costly but that's the book's recommendation.
C
campinmutt
Guest
we used 3"stone dust...rolled to pack solid then added 3" sand...has held up beautifully for 2 years...even after all the rain last week ,we were riding on saturday ....
We used the USDF "Underfoot" book for the most part though our materials varied a bit in that after grading and rolling the base at soil level we then added several inches of bank run with recycled concrete on top of that. One of the most important aspects to a good all-weather arena is that you compact each base layer to near 100% compaction with a 10 ton vibrating roller. We installed drain tile just on the long sides and added about another 6" of compacted stoned dust with CR-6 around the edges and over the drain tile. The slope of the arena must also be correct with each compaction. I let my arena sit over one winter before adding my footing and I'm glad I did because it needed another compaction after sitting since it was during the drought that we initially did our compaction work. The I added rail road ties to keep the footing in and used a 50/50 mixture of sand/stonedust footing to 1.5 inches and another 1/2 inches of felt/flat rubber mixture called Travatex. It's been about 3 years now and the ring almost never has a day that it can't be ridden it. I think last Thursday was one of the first days it was too wet and of course when it's covered with several inches of snow.
BlissfulJumper
Equestrian :)
I saw your ring when I picked bz up one day and I did like it. It also seems simple enough for my father he likes to take 2 steps to reach a goal that normally takes ten. We also have a big problem with water. From last weeks rain I still can't turn out or ride and prob won't be able to til next week. I guess one of the downfalls of living on the water