Arenas- anyone made a cheap one?

Yep, buy a digger, helps if your OH is obsessed by big tracked vehicles and likes getting oily and filthy all the time.

We got all the hardcore from local demolition sites for free. Just go ask, they have to pay to dump it in landfill otherwise. Bought a digger, which got sold 10 years later for the same price. We got given a surface for free but it did cost £800 to haul it over and the fencing was free as as well.
 
is £8k cheap for a 50 x 20? If so, then yes.

Sourced my own hardcore, membrane and sand. Got in a man with a digger and hey presto !
 
we done our horse manege ourselfs, got all hardcore for free from local building site enough for a 20x40 meters, got a man with a digger to clear the area and lay all hardcore for £1000, membrain for £240 and we have been offered wood chips for free. but i think I want sand so shoped around and can get it from red hill in Surrey (big sand site) for £600 the good stuff for 120 tons. so if you have the man power do it your selfs. Lots of site on google to see how you do it. but don't forget planing... because some one else will....
 
oh, for got to say we also shoped around for quotes and it was silly money they wanted anything from £7000 to £25,000
 
thankies all, sounds like is def poss then, did you put in drains etc and membranes aswell? or just hardcore then surface straight on top- any probs with waterlogging etc?

no prob with OH and big boys toys, he just love them! Dieseldog how much did you pay for a digger? and how long did it take altogether?
 
I think the digger was about £2k, but it was an enourmous 360 slew with massive tracks on it. It actually got scrapped this year and I think we got more back for it in scrap than we paid for it.

We put in a lot of drains, hardcore and no membrane, There used to be an arena there before but the last people hadn't bothered with drains so it floated away... we have a lot of natural springs.
 
Have a look at this link...it is a mine of information & will point you in the right direction....Good Luck
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http://www.ascotarenas.co.uk/index.html
 
We put no drainage in as we had to dig deep anyhow because we have clay, we dug about 2/3 ft in some place's then filled with hard core, and leveled then top up with crushed concrete leveled again. so far so good no prob with the drainage as gone so deep. remember to top up with a dust free stone on top of you hard core (if poss) hard stone about 4/6 mm.
 
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