# Arena drainage problem



## Tazmanian Devil (Oct 11, 2008)

Hoping someone here has ideas on how to fix this.

I have an outdoor arena which was built about three years ago. It measures about 130' x 300'. 

We leveled the area, built a base of crushed stone and compacted it. On top of that was placed geotex fabric and crushed stone. Footing is sand.

A french drain system was installed on the "high" side to stop outside water flowing into the arena. A 2% grade was made to promote water drainage off the surface. A post fence runs the edge, with footer boards to help contain the footing.

Overall, it came out well. There is one problem, and that involves drainage.


In the spring, we tend to get a lot of rain. After some very heavy storms, water pooled in a few areas. It apparently rained faster than the ring could drain. Following the grade, the water formed small "rivers" in two places. That problem became compounded with each new rainstorm.

The result is a few areas where the footing started to wash away. It became so bad in these areas that the footing washed away under the edge boards (where I now have an opening).

I have added additional foot boards to close the holes. I have added more footing to fill in the original valleys. The problem keeps returning (in the same spots). The "rivers" are just too set for me to fix them with the tools I have.

I plan to bring the contractor back this spring to add more footing on the affected side. This will correct the problem for now, but I am wondering what I can do to keep it from returning. I do regular ring maintenance, but want to avoid bringing in a significant amount of footing and having things re-graded every year or two.

Any ideas?


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## PaintHorseMares (Apr 19, 2008)

When you have heavy rains, nothing in the world is going to drain fast enough to prevent washing out footing. Once the water is flowing over the surface, you've lost the battle. Around here, all the "perfect" arenas have to add footing every year.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Tazmanian Devil (Oct 11, 2008)

PaintHorseMares said:


> When you have heavy rains, nothing in the world is going to drain fast enough to prevent washing out footing. Once the water is flowing over the surface, you've lost the battle. Around here, all the "perfect" arenas have to add footing every year.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Thanks for the info. I pretty much figured I would have to add more footing on a regular basis. I guess you are saying that problems like this are inevitable?

When adding footing, should I do anything special? Compress it a little? Or just dump and grade?

Should I dump more of the same sand to just fix the current problem? Or should I add something different (which I was considering anyway) and mix everything in during the re-grade?

I wouldn't mind so much if the washouts were more or less even. Guess that's the nature of water... it finds a path and digs in. Most of the arena is fine... but the areas where the washouts happen get stripped down to the base farily quickly. It's too much to repair myself and I was hoping to avoid an additional truck of fill every year.


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## PaintHorseMares (Apr 19, 2008)

Yes, with heavy rain, you'll always have runoff problems. Consider that for the size of your area, 1" of rain produces over 24,000 gallons of water to deal with.
I would pack it down to match the rest of your arena. You're going to have more runoff if it's loose and water is flowing through it.
I don't know about mixing something different with the sand. Here, we use stone screenings instead of sand. It holds up well, but a torrential rain can still rut it out. Whatever you pick, make sure it's ok with your geotextile. Some footings can clog geotextile and make it useless.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Tazmanian Devil (Oct 11, 2008)

Great info. Thanks again for the help.


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