Opinions on husbands arena building idea...to make it cheaper!

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LauraJenkinson

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Hello all,
I've got 3 questions -

My husband is a very experienced ground worker. He has just started his own company and has the help of a someone that used to work for a major arena builder.

1. He has costed the groundworks of making an arena and then we think its a good idea to let people select their own surface. What do you think?!

2. Would be people be put off having a arena built by a groundworking company as opposed to a devoted arena building company? As the arena builders companies seem to be very costly. Husband has worked out that to get a standard 20M x40M arena, 3 rail + wooden gate dug out from soil would cost 8K then the customer pays for the surface they want.

3. Also is there much demand for round pens these days?!
Thank you all in advance!
 
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If you mean a standard 20 x 40 all weather arena then I used a recognised arena company as I got a guarantee on works and surface. I had a choice of 3 types of surface, rubber, sand , or gel track. They would guarantee all of those as they knew how they would age and could guarantee their own drainage works.

Your husband cannot give a quote on a job until he knows the ground he has to work with and potential issues he has to cope with. My arena required cut and fill as on a slope. It also had issues with massive granite boulders which we came across while doing the ground works. Boulders that could only be moved by JCB as so huge. We had excellent drainage and were able to create a huge soakaway on our own land which we took the drains to.
 
LauraJenkinson said:
Hello all,
I've got 3 questions -

My husband is a very experienced ground worker. He has just started his own company and has the help of a someone that used to work for a major paddock builder.

1. He has costed the groundworks of making a paddock and then we think its a good idea to let people select their own surface. What do you think?!

2. Would be people be put off having a paddock built by a groundworking company as opposed to a devoted paddock building company? As the paddock builders companies seem to be very costly. Husband has worked out that to get a standard 20M x40M paddock, 3 rail + wooden gate dug out from soil would cost 8K then the customer pays for the surface they want.

3. Also is there much demand for round pens these days?!
Thank you all in advance!
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If I wanted a paddock built I'd do it myself for a lot less and round paddocks are more american than english, so their wouldnt be much of a market over here for them.

If your talking about a riding arena, then its normal for people to choose a surface that they want. If you don't supply the surface they won't buy from you. You can't make people have what they don't want. So not sure what your getting at with letting people choose how to spend their money?

I'd be concerned that it was so cheap because of supplies not being as good as what the top companies use and the arena not lasting as long because of it.
 
Thanks for all that feedback =D

The quote is based on a straight forward build in a field tbh

Its good feedback that you would want the surface provided too, rather than source your own.

I thought the price seemed cheap but he is a very experienced groundworker and is working with someone that helped to build the oylmpic areana for 2012 - so he has costed quality materials. He has alot of contacts in the buillding world as he has done the ground works for many large building estates in the past -but the recession has caused us to look for some new directions.

Thanks again for peoples thoughts and I will try that forum for natural horsemanship - a great link thanks!
 
8k for a 20mx40m fenced post and rail arena seems incredibly cheap to me. Has your husband costed out everything properly? I used groundwork people to do both my round pen and my arena but I knew exactly what I wanted and how I wanted it doing, they supplied the people and machinery to do the job. My farm is pretty much all tile-drained (with underground drains throughout) so I didn't have to bother with all that. The groundsmen used laser to make sure the fall was slight but enough. I have no membrane under my riding areas as not needed however there are many levels of stone/screenings underneath the surface. We fenced ourselves so only had the company in to do the actual footings.
 
Hi Spring Feather - thanks for the reply. Yes he has check and double checked with his suppliers. But that price is for a standard straightforward build on the ideal flat ground with just soil to remove.
The price covers the correct dig formation using 2 layers of membrane, one woven and one non-woven and a herringbone drainage system.
 
Well if he's sure he's going to cover all his costs and make a profit on top then I think marketing arenas for a price such as this will bring him in a lot of business from people who would love to have an arena but feel that 15k upwards is too much to spend.
 
I am having a house built so at the moment have blokes with diggers doing drainage. I think that most problems with arenas are caused by a poor understanding of drainage and them using cheap drainage or inadequate material and membrane. I think I would far rather have someone who had some knowledge of drainage and materials do the base than some of the clueless wallies that are about, the choice of surface is the really down to cost and preference. There seems to little understanding that no matter what you have on the top if the base is rubbish it will not work long term.
I know a couple of people who have done self builds and both have had problems because they have skimped on the surface and maintenance but the drainage has been fine.
As to price, if he is working for himself and not paying for equipment the price seems about right. I had a fencing project last year and costed the materials, the variation on what people wanted on top to erect it was huge.
 
honetpot said:
As to price, if he is working for himself and not paying for equipment the price seems about right.
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And this ^^ is exactly what I mean by making sure your husband (OP) has his costings right. He must charge for his time at the going rate and of course he will have to make sure all machinery/equipment is also being paid for. A bit like livery stables who make their own hay - people think because the YO owns the land and the machinery that it costs them nothing. I don't just mean the diesel to run the equipment btw; all businesses have to add in the cost of purchasing and servicing their equipment, land etc. Sooo many people do not understand costings, if I thought about it for too long it can frustrate the life out of me when I see/hear of people who can't cost properly as it's a surefire way to go under very quickly.
 
Thanks for those.
Im sure he will be correct in his workings. He used to run a large civil engineering company with his dad working on prisons, football stadiums and large housing estates. But the recession caused work to dry up so his dad retired and now my husband is going to start a smaller company. He has been doing it for many years.
He is currently doing the groundworks for agricultural buildings.... so maybe the next stop is indoor schools! ha ha
I guess if you have good men working that get the job done quickly and access to the machinery then it reduces the costs.
 
The best arena firms give their arenas a guarantee and will fix problems that occur in a certain timespan, so you need to factor in the potential cost of any extra work done under guarantee if you want to make a decent profit.
 
My arena is being built at the moment by a groundworks company. They have done them before and sometimes subcontract for a specialist arena company. All the latter do is project manage the work as they subcontract all the work.

I sorted the surface and aggregate out myself.
 
Frankly I think your husband has just discovered what extortionate profits true arena companies make out of gullible horse people who want a horse name on their arenas. If he starts locally and builds a name for himself and gives a guarantee, he'll do well. I wish him luck.

Tell him he needs to be extremely careful where he sources silica sand,its not all the same.
 
Thank you for those - it does seem the paddock builders are making alot of money!! Plus if they do sub-contract ground workers my husband would cut out the middle mad. He is jack of all trades and also a qualified joiner so would be able to complete all the fencing too! =D

Thats interesting about the silica sand too!
 
Your husband could do some work as a subbie for an arena company, then he will know where they source materials, learn the subtle nuances of planning rules on arenas and practice on their liability.
 
I agree that arena builders seem to charge a premium for works that an experienced groundworks person could do a lot cheaper. Experience of the drainage necessary seems to be where they might fall down. It is helpful if he can offer someone with that experience. Also, someone who can prepare scaled plans for planning applications is very useful.

Where are you based? I am looking for someone to do groundworks at the moment.
 
My OH builds arenas. I think its about getting a reputation as a good construction company. Plus having plenty of customers in the area who are happy to show potential customers the arenas they have had built. And proof that they don't flood etc. etc.
Its all down to sourcing the correct, quality materials and the haulage costs from the quarry to the location of the job. I don't think you can put a ball park figure of the cost of an arena. If the location of the job is 100+ miles from a quarry the haulage would make a massive cost difference to the job compared with a job that is say 20 miles from a quarry.
 
Maybe also look at all weather turnout paddocks, I know some people use their arenas for this but there are people without that luxury and who cant afford an arena but could afford a basic area with drainage and a less flashy surface
 
I have recently had an arena installed by a professional company. I had a very good quote from an independent groundworks contractor but decided not to use him as I suspected materials would have been of poor quality for the price quoted. Also I don't have the expertise to know which agregates and surface to buy so I needed someone with the knowledge of what to buy where. When the arena was completed we had issues with patches feeling like a waterbed and several months later with stone coming through the membrane. Fortunately as we had used a professional arena company they came back and redid the whole arena digging out several feet of clay from below the area originally excavated. The clay had not been visible when they first cleared the site but once they dug further then they needed to dig another 3-4ft of clay from under the whole arena and backfill with iron stone before relaying and replacing the drainage, clean stone, membranes, sand and Flexiride. All of this was done at their expense. I would never recommend using a company that couldn't offer a guarantee after my experiences and I would suggest that your OH factor in situations like mine which must have cost the company more than double as the repair work took considerably longer and was hugely more expensive than the original build.

Does his price include drainage and clean stone etc just leaving the buyer to find a surface? Or do they have to source all agregates and membranes too? Also how do you determine after the fact whether the drainage or the surface is at fault if there are problems? It was really hard to tell what the problem with my arena was until they had taken it all up. I can imagine in the situation you are suggesting that the customer could have a battle on their hands if a problem arose later on.
 
LauraJenkinson said:
The quote is based on a straight forward build in a field tbh
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You can't really provide a quote on this basis though, geotechnical aspects are not somehow erased by a straight forward build in a field. You have no idea what soil conditions/drainage conditions etc may be found. Being a field does not make something uniform/simple.
 
I may have been a little unclear. The price covers all the drainage and it all the clean stone aggregates. OH has considered the cost of installing correct soak-aways (I think they are called that) for the drainage and or installing drainage connectors to the main drainage sites.

LynH that must have cost the company a fortune to correct and I will feed that back to him - that could be a costly problem!

Jenniaddams the quote provided is as mentioned a straightforward ideal soil type build (in the ideal world!). Of course my husband would have to see sites and do what he does best to evaluate costs in different grounds.

His "paddock building mentor" worked on the arena for the oylmpic 2012 area, so i'm sure he knows they best products to use and has been clear in expressing the huge profits that companies make based on the amount of men they use on the job and then the cost of subcontracting. He has also played apart in sourcing and pricing materials

All feedback appreciated. We have since started to research a supplier for surfaces to offer a choice of 3 surfaces based on the feedback from people on here - so thank you!
 
Another unforeseen cost for my arena builders which I forgot to mention... When the lorries came in delivering the aggregates our driveway collapsed. I had asked them to use the bottom gate to the field but as it was wet they came in through our driveway and had a lorry sunk 50cm deep into our drive. They had to absorb the cost of a) retrieving the lorry and subsequent delays of other lorries waiting to get in and b) did 50cm deep all along our driveway and replace it all. Things do go wrong, probably to me more than most, but they do go wrong and you have to factor in a contingency for those too. One of the quotes I got had small print saying if lorries got stuck the customer was responsible for supplying a tractor to get it out. Another quote had small print saying that any excess topsoil/subsoil etc was the customers responsibility. The small print is often the reason for lower priced quotes and we found it well worth reading everything on every quote. The reason we chose the highest price quote was so we didn't have any of these unknown additional costs. People will want to know why the quote is so cheap, mine varied from £18k-£26k and the amount of drainage varied in them all too. It might be worth you get some quotes to compare small print and what is and isn't included so you know what else other than surface your quote is excluding.
 
It does sound like your husband knows what he is doing and as a groundworker he probably does (which is why I used a groundwork company to do my arena base). I think he could market this as "20m x 40m arenas starting price 8k". The only problem with that is that people budget for it costing them that amount and are loathe to pay any more due to any unforseen circumstance. Just because he's cheaper doesn't necessarily mean that he won't do as good a job, or better, than the arena companies out there (hey I've seen some ghastly arena jobs built by arena 'professionals' which constantly flood and where the footings end up on top of the arena surface within no time). I think he just needs to get a few jobs under his belt and word of mouth can help enormously thereafter.
 
My area groundworks where done by the drainage contractor in the next village it's not rocket science .
The best advice he gave was to prepare the site and leave it sitting before the stone starts to go down and watch what the rain does , where it wants to run to and adjust the drains if necessary at that stage great advice from a man who had spent his working life working with water draining fields .
OP I think there's a lot of merit in the approach your OH suggests do the groundworks then just add the surface , my school came in a lot cheaper on our self build approach .
 
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