Best place to build a sand school and ball park costs...

[bumbleymummy]

Hi everyone. We've been looking at a few properties and we've found one with lots of potential

I would think (and I have never built a school), you would need to get rid of the concrete because 1/, even with a surface on top of it, it would be took hard, and 2/ because you want water to drain through the surface, and away, and the concrete would prevent that.

Good news is, I would think being flat you'll save on earthworks?

I would ring some arena companies and have a chat.......

Thanks MrsL. I was thinking I might be able to put the drainage (gravel etc) on top if I just dug out drains or something and then put all teh other layers on top so it wouldn't be too hard. Yeah, I might have to ring some companies. It's just because we haven't bought the house or anything yet - so I can't bring them out to look at it. I was just hoping to figure out if it was feasible. With the amount of work that needs to be done to the house it will be pretty low on the priority list anyway!

Yes, but you should be able to get an idea from them......I am sure they are used to people ringing, just wanting to get an idea of what is involved.

Thanks :) I'll see if I can get hold of anyone tomorrow.

I had an extension to my school put in (an extra 15x20m) and it cost £8k. You will definitely need drainage so I would imagine the concrete would need to go. I think a 20x 40 will set you back around 20k but agree with other posters who say get some local quotes.

Thanks Denman. I had that figure in mind for the school. Just wondering how much extra it will cost to dig up all that concrete!

I've done 3 arenas DIY (we move house a lot!!!).

First of all you will need planning so ask your planning department how they would view an application before comitting to buying the property.

As far as I know you cannot build an arena on a random bit of concrete. There is a very expensive way of building an arena on a concrete foundation but you need to get the levels right. By far the easiest way of building an arena is to remove the top soil while creating a gradient towards the side water naturally drains to, put in drains, a cheap membrane (100), clean hardcore stone, boards/fencing, a really good quality membrane heat sealed and tacked to the boards (at least 500), then sand or the surface of your choice.

Things that will affect the overall cost include:

• access to your property. If you can get massive lorries in it will cost a lot less
• distance from quarry. If you are close to a suitable quarry you save a lot on transportation costs
• ground preparation, like having a relatively level area to begin with, having stable soil (not clay for example) and being able to dispose of the top soil on site.

Whatever you do get a very experienced grounds person to do the work and don't cut corners. It is perfectly possible to do it DIY but you need to do your homework (and still need a top digger driver).

Thanks Booboo! That's all really useful info. The site definitely has good access (it is an old farm) and there is a quarry just up the road from it!

The most level place around the house is where the concrete is ( right behind the stables too) so I guess I'll have to find out how much it costs to remove the concrete and compare that to the price of digging out the hill. I don't really want to dig away part of the field tbh because it would be a waste of good grazing when there'll be this big vacant concrete area that I can't use for anything else.

I did casually mention it to DH this evening and I got 'the look'. He's not horsey and sand schools aren't on his checklist. I think I'll keep my investigations to myself for now.

I don't know if this helps but here are photos and specs of the last school we did:

www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?444581-Arena-step-by-step-photos-and-spec&highlight=Arena

Wow Booboo. That looks amazing. Do you mind me asking how much it cost?

It was 3 years ago in France so prices differ and it was 15k euros for the 20x40 arena you see. We then added the Clopf for another 2.5k pounds as the sand was riding too deep (we couldn't get decent sand anywhere near us at all and had to have the Clopf shipped in from the UK!).

Thanks! Just need to get DH on board. Think we should probably prioritise the roof repairs for the house