Did you know that there’s actually a science to choosing the right footing material for a riding arena?
When we moved into our new facility we didn’t know how well the excising footing (wood chips ) in the arena would work for us, but our hopes weren’t very high. It gets dusty when dry and slippery when wet, and it’s not easy to keep the moisture content right in between. For now, we’ve just made it work, but we certainly don’t try to do sliding stops in it ! So finally, we broke ground and are getting our new footing in !
Some folks ‘design’ their own footing, but the end result isn’t always what they hoped for. It’s much more complicated then just spreading some sand. Learning from other peoples (costly!) mistakes, we chose to hire an expert in this area, Bob Kiser from Absolute Innovations. Bob offers consulting packages for almost any budget and will select the best soil samples for your situation and helps you find a contractor for the construction. Bob’s clientele list is loaded with famous horsemen and national & world shows.
We are anxiously awaiting for Whitworth Excavating INC to to get started on the project!
we’ll keep you posted on the starting & finish dates, as the indoor arena will be temporary closed for construction during that time! We hope to have the project finished by 11/10/07, but no later then 11/15/07
—————————————————————– UPDATES:
10/29/07- starting date, 11/1/07 -all old footing is removed, base material excavated, 11/3/07- piles of dirt are going through a screener, to remove all rocks and pebbles (see pictures above) 11/8 /07-All screening finished, clay base to be leveled. 11/9/07-packing and rolling clay base with steam roller, start of spreading screened soil. 11/12-13/07 sub-base & sandy top layer installed, rotertiled & harrowed. WEDNESDAY 11/14/07 ARENA READY FOR USE !!!
We’ll be starting construction for the new arena footing on monday 10/29 !
It looks like the arena footing will be done by 10/10/07, but I’ll be able to give a more definate date, as we get closer to the end of the week. I’ll keep you posted !
Boy, there’s a lot of material to screen,about 400 yards of soil is going through this big screener, scoop by scoop. The screening will be done this afternoon. The clay base will be steamrolled and packed down. Then we’re spreading the rock-free soil at a level dept of about 7″, that will be packed down again with a steam roller. After that we’ll get 1″ clean sand on top and will be tilled in with the top layer to create a 3 inch soft footing. So, I doubt that we’ll get finished by the end of this week……… I think Tuesday the 13th looks more like it, but again I will know more as we get closer to the weekend. So far the weather has been really working with us, and everyone has been able to ride outside, but the forecast is saying rain over the weekend….. hang in there! just a few more days and we can all ride indoors again ! thank you for all your support and understanding!