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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 1118
 
Location: The South | Any and all suggestions are welcome!
We aren't planning anything fancy. We just want a spot to ride in with good ground, and we'd like to set up some balloons and shoot a little at home. The area we have picked out is in a high spot so hopefully it will drain well. It will need quite a bit of work to level it because it's got a decent slope to it; the high side is probably around 4-5 feet higher than the low side. The overall size will be around 100' wide and 200' long.
My questions are: after we excavate and pack down the base (we have red clay mostly), should we put sand directly on top of that or should we put something like screenings in between the base and the sand?
What % grade should there be? Should it start at one end or should the highest point be made to run down the middle of the arena so it drains to the sides?
Finally-what should we expect to pay for the excavation and dirt work (ballpark estimates)? Just wondering what others have paid for work on arenas similar to this. | |
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 Extreme Veteran
Posts: 430
Location: Montana | Bumping this up for you. Good questions, I dont have all those answers but I am anxious as well to see what others suggest.
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The Resident Destroyer of Liberal Logic
Location: PNW | LindsayJordan84 - 2014-01-20 4:50 PM
Any and all suggestions are welcome!
We aren't planning anything fancy. We just want a spot to ride in with good ground, and we'd like to set up some balloons and shoot a little at home. The area we have picked out is in a high spot so hopefully it will drain well. It will need quite a bit of work to level it because it's got a decent slope to it; the high side is probably around 4-5 feet higher than the low side. The overall size will be around 100' wide and 200' long.
My questions are: after we excavate and pack down the base (we have red clay mostly), should we put sand directly on top of that or should we put something like screenings in between the base and the sand?
What % grade should there be? Should it start at one end or should the highest point be made to run down the middle of the arena so it drains to the sides?
Finally-what should we expect to pay for the excavation and dirt work (ballpark estimates)? Just wondering what others have paid for work on arenas similar to this.
I gave these questions to my husband who is a contractor, heavy equipment man.
He says: it depends how much rain you get to determine how much rock fines to put down really. The rock fines protect your base, which lets the water drain off, but at the same time, you need to be careful whenever you WORK the arena to not get into the fines, bc then you will have them in your footing,and you will have a hole in that layer. Fines are a great thing to put down, they just need to be compacted really well also. The more rain you get, the thicker the lift of fines needs to be.
You want your arena to have a crown - higher in the middle and then gently sloped to the outsides. This will let the water drain properly.
As far as price:
Excavator - $100-$150 per hour depending on the size of the machine
Grader - $90-$140 per hour
CAT/Dozer - $85-$140 for average size machine
But these prices are for Oregon. He says it really depends where you are at. | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1118
Location: The South | Thank you svincent!!! And thank you to your husband! | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1118
Location: The South | Bumping this up for the day crowd. | |
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Member
Posts: 18
| Those prices are ball park, I am from Michigan. My ex was in excavating... after 11 years of marriage I still didn't have an arena...He said it would take 3 or 4 days of work (he always worked 10 to 14 hour days) Never found the time for me that is why he is an X anyway Don't rush the footings,,,, depending on the weather you may have to wait a month to get the compacting and grading done right. My ex was really really good at his job and talked about how most people are always in a hurry and want to "rush a job" Hire a true professional and then trust them. | |
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 Expert
Posts: 2154
Location: USA | When doing mine, we did a 2% grade which is what is used around here for soccer fields. We have red clay too. We worked the ground pretty deep and then had sand brought in and worked it in even more. We also had an extra load of sand dumped outside the arena for when needed to make it more convenient. | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1118
Location: The South | So would y'all recommend this type of grade? The guy that came out was talking about starting at the high end and grading down to the low end, but I think making a crown in the center makes more sense.
Here's a picture I found:
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 Born not Made
Posts: 2937
Location: North Dakota | I don't have anything super useful to add, but it makes more sense to me as well to have the center as the highest and then slope the grade off of that.
Where I board now, the arena is nice and it is big. But the highest part of the arena is the NW corner. Which means the SE corner is always mucky because that's where the water drains to.
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 629
Location: Roping pen | Have a few things for you to think about---
The 4'-5' slope you mentioned---not as much on a 200' wide area, but a lot more issues on a 60' wide area-so depends on width, how big an issue.
Our current arena is 160' wide and it had a 2'-3' elevation change side to side. Did not move any dirt. Was noticable the first few years, but after about year 4, enough dirt had eroded to the low side, it became a 1'-2' change..about right for drainage. Appears to have stabized at that slope.
As far as moving dirt, 4'-5' is a lot to move on a typical arena size of 100'x200' or so. The math is 100'x200' is 20,000 sq feet. IF you need to cut 4', you could say you are moving 2' across the entire 20,000 square feet--ie-cutting 4' on high side, filling 4' on low side, so average cut across the entire project would be 2'. So 2' x 20,000 sq feet is 40,000 sq. feet. To get to cubic yards, you need to divide that by 27 as 27 square feet in a cubic yard. That becomes 1,481 cubic yards of dirt to move. Last I knew, in our area, several years ago, it was around $10 a cubic yard to move dirt within that distance. So that would cost $14,810 or so. Ask around for local prices.
BUT-becareful moving dirt in an arena!
No matter how careful, the fill dirt will never be the same as the cut dirt. It just won't pack like dirt that has been there since Jesus.
Depending on top soil depth in your area, you will probably cut into the subsoil or find rock. Dig a 4' post hole in the cut area and see how much the soil changes. No matter who you hire to move dirt, the fill will have the top soil from the cut 3' deep and the subsoil off the cut at the top of the fill unless you stock pile, and that would cost double or more.
As far as grading a slope, yes, it is great to have a crown but make sure the runoff can be channeled properly. Good luck. | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1118
Location: The South | Bumping this up for the Friday crowd... | |
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| Spin Doctor - 2014-01-22 5:02 PM
Have a few things for you to think about---
The 4'-5' slope you mentioned---not as much on a 200' wide area, but a lot more issues on a 60' wide area-so depends on width, how big an issue.
Our current arena is 160' wide and it had a 2'-3' elevation change side to side. Did not move any dirt. Was noticable the first few years, but after about year 4, enough dirt had eroded to the low side, it became a 1'-2' change..about right for drainage. Appears to have stabized at that slope.
As far as moving dirt, 4'-5' is a lot to move on a typical arena size of 100'x200' or so. The math is 100'x200' is 20,000 sq feet. IF you need to cut 4', you could say you are moving 2' across the entire 20,000 square feet--ie-cutting 4' on high side, filling 4' on low side, so average cut across the entire project would be 2'. So 2' x 20,000 sq feet is 40,000 sq. feet. To get to cubic yards, you need to divide that by 27 as 27 square feet in a cubic yard. That becomes 1,481 cubic yards of dirt to move. Last I knew, in our area, several years ago, it was around $10 a cubic yard to move dirt within that distance. So that would cost $14,810 or so. Ask around for local prices.
BUT-becareful moving dirt in an arena!
No matter how careful, the fill dirt will never be the same as the cut dirt. It just won't pack like dirt that has been there since Jesus.
Depending on top soil depth in your area, you will probably cut into the subsoil or find rock. Dig a 4' post hole in the cut area and see how much the soil changes. No matter who you hire to move dirt, the fill will have the top soil from the cut 3' deep and the subsoil off the cut at the top of the fill unless you stock pile, and that would cost double or more.
As far as grading a slope, yes, it is great to have a crown but make sure the runoff can be channeled properly. Good luck.
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WELL SAID DOCTOR ... as he suggested drill you some post holes all over the area the dirt is to be moved from to see what kind of rocks you find and the type of soil at the bottom of the holes .... you are moving a lot of dirt!! It sounds like you are cutting into the side of a bigger hill ... if so . .. you need a deep wide ditch on the high side to drain the water from the hillside around the arena ... changing the direction of how water flows is one of the tuffest jobs ever ... Mother Nature will put it back the way she wants in a few years or sooner...
Don't you have a more level area that you could push dirt up from around your 100x200 arena and make it a foot higher than the original was ....... and at the same time use the cuts to move water around the arena site ... similar to building a pad for a barn??
At the same time ... make you a donut around the entire thing a foot higher than the rest of the arena .... and haul in any dirt/sand to put inside this donut .... sure it will fill up with water but you will see where the water wants to go and put some drain pipes thru the donut to let the water out .... or short French drains which are built just like your septic lines .. the donut will help contain your haul in dirt from washing away .... you can nick name it the fish pond ... lol ..
Trying to have a crown is a total waste of time and money... it is going to settle, wash away and traffic will knock it down in a week or two. A good dozer operator can move dirt to flatten out an area with a few flags and one laser shot if it is as ugly as you say it is ...
Rocks and cleachie mud is going to be a major problem along with rain washing everything away ... if you do not put some boundaries around the arena site ...
Whatever dirt estimates you get ... double the figure ... ....
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