Base for Indoor Arena/Barn

[dressage_1991]

Hi all! I’m looking to start my barn/indoor arena build project this fall - Very exciting but very overwhelming all in the same! Would love to pick those of your brains who have been here before! I’m located in MN and site prep is the first piece. I’ve got about a foot of topsoil. The contractor said my soil is loamy but with some clay. I’ve got to make some decisions on site prep planning – My goal is functional but not fancy so I stay close to budget. For the indoor arena, the contractor recommends taking off the topsoil, packing the base, and adding sand. I know typically a crushed rock layer is recommended before the sand but I have to admit it would be very expensive to add that piece. In your experience is it a necessary expense? Do you have other suggestions? What are the most cost effective materials for building bases in your opinion?

The building itself is located in northern MN, so harsh winters. It will be a 60x144 overall with one section as the arena and a 60x24 section used for the barn area (4 12x12 stalls and a tack room with an aisleway). I’d love to pick your brains on the building base that is affordable as well. I’d likely be doing dirt floor for the time being and switching to concrete down the road for the barn area. What do you love as your stall and barn base that was cost-friendly? The building itself will house my personal horses and some training clients from time to time.

And then do you guys have recommendations on stalls that are cost friendly? I’ve gotten quotes from the more mainstream manufacturers. Thinking there is room to get creative here whether that’s contacting local fabricators, etc.

Just a girl with a dream and a budget! Any help appreciated! Thank you forum!

[mmeqcenter]

Building stalls yourself will be the most affordable option. Prefab stalls are expensive from any manufacturer.

You would remove an entire 12" of topsoil and not fill in the hole with anything? So your barn and arena floor will be 12" lower than the surrounding grade?

[SusanO]

Some friends built an indoor without putting down a screenings/rock base. The soil here is clay underneath topsoil. When they watered the arena they ended up with slick spots under the footing. I don’t think you need something as extensive as a stone/screenings base for an outdoor arena, but footing on top of dirt can get slippery. Unless you don’t water it and then you get dust. As much as it costs to build the structure I would not skip this step.

As far as stalls - sometimes CL has some used ones for sale. Worth checking it before you purchase new ones because sometimes you get lucky.

[LCDR]

I envy your topsoil. You will be removing around 260 cubic yards of it. That is approximately 20 triaxle dump truck loads. In my location at $750 per load you would have $15,000 worth of topsoil. Crushed rock, arena base size, goes for $450 per triaxle load here.

Check costs in your area and if you’re really lucky with costs and have bargaining skills you may actually make a little money or break even by selling or trading your excavated topsoil. You’ll need to dig deeper into this, but don’t be paying to have good topsoil hauled away so the trucking company can sell it all for themselves.

My figures include my local trucking costs. I live only about 15 miles away from a granite quarry. Unfortunately the nearest good arena sand place is 75 miles away, so that 150 mile trip per sand truck really adds up.

[fjordmom]

My barn and arena are 15+ years old, but this is what we did. I’m in northern Michigan, so similar weather to you. We built in several phases. The barn came first, then the arena, which is attached to the barn by an enclosed "breezeway that allowed for some hay or equipment storage.

We were fortuante in several ways.

1. Property is in the local gravel mining distrcit, so we were actually able to make use of lot of on site resources.
2. Property was a dairy farm for a long time so we had a great layer of topsoil for good pasture growth and outdoor riding area, but it also had great drainage due to the underlying gravel.
3. Site was relatively level, very minimal grading needed.
4. Large local gravel and excavating company is less tha 5 miles down the road from us.
5. Company had had experience with horse arena building. (They did the rings for Traverse City Equestrain show in its early and current days.)

We stared by having the barn shell built by an excellent local builder whose specialty was large pole barns.
When the shell was being built, we measured for the corner post of the stalls. They we 4X4 and installed at the time by the contractor.
Then we laid down “diamond dust” (the material used on ball diamonds) in two strips where the stalls would go, rented a compactor and compacted the surface level and near concrete hard. We did that labor ourself. It was a bit gruling, but in our younger days we were up to it. Now hittng age 70, not so much.
For the stall walls, we order several pallet loads of 12 foot southern yellor pine that was pre routed to stack on itself. We also ordered harware kits that were basically aluminum channes the the boards would slide into and we then screwed to each board. (Don’t ask me how many hours my tow kids and I spent with screw guns.) We also assembeld the sliding doors from kit harware. (My kids learned “measure twice, cut once”. Good math lesson; they were 9 and 14 at the time and became quite good at it.)
After the stalls were up, the contractor came back and pour and groved concrete for the aisle. That area was recess since the diamond dust for the stall flooring was built up in that process. When all was said and done it was a nice level floor. We put 4’x6’ mats, fitting snug, in the stalls.
The barn was completed in late spring.
A friend who had been through the process a few years before strongly encouraged putting down the arena base a year in advance, letting it sit exposed over winter settle well to see if it heaved at all. Then built the indoor over the “cured” surface. (Or if buget contraints mean it might take time to get to the indoor arena, you wil have an excellent out arena site in the mean time.)
Luckily no heaving occured.
Letting the base sit is, in my mind and experience, absolutely critical!!! A horse acquantance near by was in a hryy to get into the horse boarding business and skipped the waiting step. they lated admitted severely regretting that because they had constant problems with thier base even thought the materials used and thier soild conditions were very similar to ours.
For creating the base, we had the topsoil for the arena area and an adjacent area pushed aside and saved. The arena site was leveled, gravel was harvested from a large depression that was dug in the adjacent site and used for the coarse gravel layer, It coast use excavator time, but material was free, and of course no hauling charge. It is the hauling the is expensive far more than the material itself.
coarse gravel was leveled, then topped with IIRC 6 inches of diamond dust. That was laser leveled and compacted. Then it sat for the year noted above.
We proceeded with the indoor arean the next spring. Used the same contractor as the barn. He was a dream to work with an a wealth of knowledge of how to keep our overly picky building inspectors happy.
Once the arean shell was up, we ran a single course of treated 1x6 along the bottom where would be incontact with the footing material. the rest of the kickboard was, again, southern yellow pine that we installed ourselves.
Finally we had angular sand trucked in for the footiing. (You do NOT want beach sand.) IIRC it was called 10 A sand or something like that. I was able to go to the gravel pit and literally look at materials to make sure of what we would be getting. The sand itself wasn’t too costly and by luck of proximity the hauling wasn’t a total killer, but it was still about 80% of the bill even for the short distance.
The barn and arena have been my pride an joy over the years. It was worth evey once of sweat labor and patience it took to put it together.
Enjoy your project.