arena construction advice please

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Cassy

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We have dug the drains and laid the woven membrane and the stone is on its way.

But how do you make sure the stone is level when it has been rolled?

And what is the best way to seal the non-woven membrane. I have strong wide tape but I am not sure this will hold.

Also we are still undecided about the surface. My daughter wants to put some sort of fibre sand and top with flexi-ride. We are still looking for reasonably priced fibre sand and someone who has flexi-ride in the area to talk to us about its pros and cons. The firm who sell it seem to be struggling to find anyone in Lincolnshire.

Thanks
 
hi, we have just finished our arena & know the joys of construction!

To level the limestone we put it down & leveled it by eye initially, then used a laser level to finalise the level & make sure there were no major bumps or dips.

With regards to the non-woven membrance we actually stitched ours with garden twine. Crazy I know but it worked & allowed for a little bit of movement within the sections unlike tape/glue. Each strip of membrane was overlapped by about 50-60cm & a stitch/knot put every meter or so.

Cant help with the surface as we have woodfibre from Ransfords, partially due to cost, but also enviromental factors, council restrictions.

Hope Ive helped!
 
Cassy said:
But how do you make sure the stone is level when it has been rolled?
Click to expand...

We also used a laser level - a proper site level that sends out a beam and you pick it up on a thing on a stick (very technical!) - just had it going all day. I think the stone would have been very variable in height without it! We have one at home, but you can hire them.

Cassy said:
And what is the best way to seal the non-woven membrane. I have strong wide tape but I am not sure this will hold.
Click to expand...

I've just used the tape. Don't know if it will work yet as we only finished tonight! I think the stitching would work best but couldn't face it! The membrane supplier said that certainly for domestic use the tape will be fine. I think you would struggle with the tape if it was wet though.

We've used sharp sand. It's affordable, and has got good reviews round here. I know others will dispute it's use, and again I can't comment yet, but I wasn't willing to wait for the lottery win that any other surface would have required.....
 
Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately my man with the jcb levelled the stone by eye. It wasn't too bad. In the end we glued and taped the seams and apart from one area where we had to patch bits together everything seemed quite firm. We had the sand delivered 2 days ago and my man with the jcb did his best to level it. We were out today with the tractor and grader trying to fill in the hollows. We lunged our first horse today and the surface seemed ok but expect it will take time to settle. We bought F55 sand which is silica sand + fibres. I am now wondering what topping to put on it or whether to leave it to settle for a while. The only problem is that it is drying out quickly and I am concerned it might blow! Any suggestions please.
 
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