School surfaces

[Nari]

The yard I'm at has a sand & rubber surface that, in this dry weather, rides deep & heavy. It churns up badly & needs levelling every day despite not getting heavy use. It would be about 9 years old & I don't think proper equestrian sand was used, the rubber is chips not strips.

YO is looking at doing something to improve it, but doesn't want to spend a fortune on replacing the entire surface. Current ideas, in no particular order, are:
- take out some sand & add a lot more rubber, most likely chips rather than strips. Does anyone have any experience of how a mostly rubber surface rides? Does it give secure footing or are horses more likeley to slip in it?
- add some sort of fibre such as Clopf, again any experiences would be great
- add some sort of oil coating. Would this be hard to do, is it effective, does it last & is it any good if the sand isn't really the right type?

She'd like to end up with something that doesn't dry out as badly, needs less maintenance & isn't so deep to ride in but still gives safe enough footing if the kids go in for a whizz round.

 

[Rob Lakeside]

Hi! I run lakeside farm livery ltd (lakesidefarmlivery.com)and have built two schools ( one of sand and fibre and one of sand and rubber)and a lunge areana,
So start with the basics,Drainage and base below the sand depth.If it does not flood in the winter or you have a membrain all is good
Sand I recently changed one school as the wrong sand was used, it was a building sand with oil and went down like concreat not allowing water through, so we changed it for Redhill fine a Days product.
Sand is every thing a good quality silican sand, or a Playpit sand.
Depth no deeper than 6" Rule not to be broken.
Adding to the sand and rubber, fibre not nessesary with a good layer of rubber on the surface. Strip rubber gives to much slip when you ride on this, so 20mm pieces are best.
Add fibre to the school yes 10 bales to a 20x60 school at £200 each
Power harrow this in and gate harrow in afterwards and it will in the summer need this each day.
Hope this helps

 

[Booboos]

Your YO may save more money getting rid of the current surface and replacing with some better quality sand than trying to sort out the problem with what can be very expensive extras.

 

[Nari]

Thank you.

The drainage is excellent, if anything it's too good as the problem is the surface is often too dry! The only time it's ever flooded was when everything froze so badly this winter then the top thawed first & the water had nowhere to go until the lower levels thawed. It's a nice surface when it's wet, it's just we can't keep it wet in this weather. Thanks for the information on strip v chunks of rubber Rob Lakeside, at the moment adding more rubber & maybe taking out some of the sand is looking like the best option unless we can sort out an effective watering system.

I can't see her wanting to resurface the school completely at the momentBooboos , that would cost a lot of money.