Sand and carpet fibre school - grading?

[soloequestrian]

My school has been down for about six years now and all I've really done is rake in the track and roll a couple of times a year - with normal schooling it holds up very well. The problem with this is the weeds get a great chance to grow and I'm now really sick of weeding! Also part way through backing the youngster and lunging seems to churn the surface up considerably more than ridden schooling so even when rolled the surface doesn't flatten as well as it normally does. I'm wondering if I should start harrowing it, but worried that a harrow would just gather up all the carpet fibre.... what do others with this surface do?

 

[JillA]

Mine is carpet fibre (on top) without sand and harrowing does just collect up the carpet, you are right. I asked Carpet Gallop about grading and they were surprised, never had to answer that question as carpet tends to flatten itself down. Mine actually has - the more it's used the more it gets through the being churned up and seems to level itself off, maybe just hang in there?
As for weeds, I have a small sprayer with Gallop and go round it once a week (takes a week for them to die back) but that's partly because as my horse is retired it gets very little use these days

 

[TGM]

We bought a proper leveller for our sand and fibre arena in the end, it does a much better job than a harrow or any of the other homemade devices my husband tried. We were very lucky and found one on Ebay for a bargain price ...

 

[soloequestrian]

I suspect a leveller is beyond my budget at the moment, but what do you search for when looking for one? Is there just one make that's suitable for sand/fibre?
I will have to get sorted with some weed killer.