I’m digging out some messy, boggy areas of my “arena.” They’re full of wood chips & I assumed the people who built it removed some trees to put in the arena and never removed the chips after grinding stumps.
In scraping out the squish, though, I’m finding (non squishy) edges that look like they’re a layer of wood chips–significant, maybe 6-8" thick?–topped by maybe 3" of sand.
The awful boggy areas seem to have lost the sand “cap” and it’s all mixed together, but the other areas look like the sand and chips have stayed separate.
Is this a thing? Like, a recognized way to build a riding surface? Or, hell, a surface for anything? I’d planned on scraping back to no chips but really didn’t expect to find them outside of the boggy spots! Scraping the entire thing to the base really is a much bigger project than I’d intended here.
No useful knowledge here but I have often thought that there should be a thread for posting “surprises” uncovered and dumb things done by previous property owners. Back to the topic at hand.
Googling around I can’t find anything anywhere about using chips as a base. Or I guess a mid layer? There does look to be a base (or something base-ish…) below the chips.
This does explain why the arena is kinda…springy?? Which honestly I don’t hate. At least in the areas where the layers work–it really sucks a lot where the layers have broken down
It sounds like someone didn’t have the money to invest in proper drainage and used the wood chips because they were free.
On part of our property we had an area dug up to replace a broken drain tile that was causing flooding. The prior owners had filled in the area with parts of a building instead of fixing the tile. It was a lovely surprise.
Oh geez you think this was done for drainage? This is the highest part of the property…everything is downhill from here. I’m not sure drainage makes sense? (God I hope not, having to figure that out too would suck.)
We’ve also found all sorts of weird buried shit but not building parts! That’s impressive, omg. Anything interesting come out of the ground or just crap for the dumpster?
I had an area at my last house where the grass would die in the heat of the summer every year. About 2’ by 3’
The previous owners had buried a slab of frikkin GRANITE in middle of the dang yard!
My vote is an intentional layer of chips. When that was slick and boggy, they added the sand.
The only formal way to make this truly usable is to scrape to hard pan and put in a proper base. But if you, like many of us, do not have Olympic aspirations and it isn’t dangerously awful, Id probably leave well enough alone and just not do mega high performance stuff on it.
Oh yeah, I’ve certainly seen wood chips of some sort as footing. But that’s not at all what I’ve got here. Wood chips are a base layer.
I don’t see how this would even function from a drainage perspective. Water sheets off the top well. I really wonder if they were going for “cushion”…which it kinda does? Where the top layer hasn’t mixed with the base is weirdly springy. The parts that work don’t suck. (What’s super irksome is they were turning horses out on it right before we closed…horses that dug through the top layer. Whyyyyyyyyy.)
I have to do something with it. I’ve dug out the largest boggy spot. The boggy spots have made half the arena unusable. Leaving it isn’t an option anymore.
When I thought it was just discreet areas of chips, the plan was to remove it and fill those areas with stone dust. Still an option I guess, just cut back to intact layers and hope there isn’t more breakdown.
Or scrape it all out.
Or, god help me, cut back to firm edge, replace the chips, and cap it with stone dust or some sort of arena sand. And pray the layers never mix. I certainly don’t turn out on it like the previous owner.
I can’t believe that third option even is one but the parts of the arena that don’t suck…don’t suck.
Ugh. This is just so not at all what I expected to find.
Yes, filling in the boggy areas you already dug out and leaving the rest is exactly what I meant. You could even try to replicate what they did, with a thin base of stone to hold the layer up. Or some non woven geotextile.
I don’t think id want drastically different footing throughout, personally. So id give replicating a whirl first, before I went nuclear and dug the whole thing out.
maybe do as we did in Asia to stabilize soil, mix cement with the soil. The process is call soil-create
here is AI definition
“Soil crete” refers to a construction technique where soil is mixed with a binder (like cement) and compacted to create a stable and durable material for various applications, such as road bases, parking lots, and even some foundation work. It’s a cost-effective and eco-friendly alternative to traditional concrete, particularly in areas with limited resources or where quick construction is needed
I guess there’s one more option: scrape the whole damn thing, mix the chips & sand, remove most of it and ride on what’s left. The stuff that’s come out has surprisingly nice structure. The boggy spots are just so damned deep. Pros: freeeeeeee. And the entire thing would (should?) be consistent throughout. Cons: could suck a lot, haha.
Filling with stone dust probably makes the most sense but I worry a bit about going from “springy” to “firm” in sections. Also the risk of investing a couple grand in rock to perhaps just have layers break down further (a risk esp at the edges?)
Trying to recreate what’s there with the chips is less $$, probably one load of screenings rather than two. More risk of the layers falling apart? I’m not sure. Keeping the spring could be nice.
@clanter I’m not sure how concrete solves this one, or would be less $$ than any other option
I’m so sorry this is happening to you. I don’t have any really good suggestions. I will share that, when we made our outdoor significantly larger, I was worried the edges of the new and old base wouldn’t match. I did use a bulldozer guy and he did a wizard job. They shoved the sand back, excavated the dirt out and laid down a base he blended in using a laser on the dozer. Could you contact a ‘dozer guy and get suggestions?
I’ve seen people use wood to fill low spots to save money on grading. Those people are idiots.
They didn’t necessarily put it down as chips, it may have been logs that rotted and now looks like chips. In fact, that would be my guess. The “sand” was likely your impermeable base, stone dust or DG or similar, that has worked it way down as the logs rotted and that’s why you have soggy areas- because the water is draining into the “holes” in the arena instead of off the side of the base as it should.
Are you sure there’s not a deteriorating tree stump under those wood chips and sand? If there is I’d be digging it out before doing any patch jobs. I believe somewhere above stump grinding was mentioned, which is why I ask about a remaining stump.
Man I’ve apparently done a poor job explaining what’s here.
There’s a base. It’s intact. It looks to maybe be clay or something.
On top of that base, there’s 8 ish inches of wood chips. Yes, they’re wood chips. No, it’s not rotting logs. It is very clearly wood chips.
On TOP of the chips is about 3" of sand. No, the sand isn’t the base that’s somehow migrated to the surface, intact (???) The sand layer is the top layer. It’s the riding surface. It’s not stone dust but could be septic sand or one of the “riding arena” sand mixes the quarries sell or some other variety of manufactured sand.
There are boggy areas. It appears the sand layer was breached in these, allowing the sand and wood chips to mix, and allowing water into the chip layer.
In cutting back the edges of the boggy areas looking for no chips, it became apparent that the chips and sand are discreet layers in non boggy parts of the area. There is a clear line where the chip layer stops and the sand layer begins. The sand layer sits on top of the chip layer.
Idk wtf the intent was here but these people did some weird stuff. The parts of the arena that aren’t boggy aren’t bad If they hadn’t turned out horses on this, that pawed through the sand layer, it might’ve been fine? But they did and the boggy spots have been growing since. Which makes sense I guess, because the edges have just been falling in.
@LCDR I really really thought the issue here was that trees were removed, stumps were ground and chips were left, and that all I’d have to do was remove a few piles of chips. So expected that! It really doesn’t look like that. :-/
@NaturallyHappy that’s good to hear you were able to extend and not have any issues with your layers! If we bring in a dirt guy, I think we’re on the road to just redoing the whole thing. Maybe we wind up there, but there are a lot of projects before that, ykwim? I don’t need something super sexy but functional would be nice lol.
@endlessclimb you’re thinking repairing/replacing the chip layer and capping with stone dust is the way to go? I admit it sounded like such a bonkers idea yesterday–just redo this crazy thing omg??–but I don’t hate the parts of the arena that work. The cost savings would be nice. I’m not sure I’m getting how to work in geotex…love the idea of separating the layers, but does it work to just use it in the repaired parts? How to keep the edges from working up?
I guess it’s safe to say that building an arena this way isn’t an actual thing
The wood chips here absolutely remind me of Fibar. They’re really “nice” wood chips? Like consistent in size and shape–much more so than I get when I chip or when the tree guy brought his big machine in. It’s actually one reason I thought they were from stump grinding!
I boarded at a barn…like forever ago…that put in fibar, and I remember it being a mix of their special chips and sand? Not layers?
Not to say it’s not that, or a diy “generic” version, and these guys just didn’t understand the instructions They certainly didn’t tout anything special in the listing about the arena, though, and I think they would’ve (if they thought it was anything special.)
But yes, I’ve totally been thinking about that same thing!!
Id dig just a little bit outside the boggy area and put the geotextile down with monster staples- 12-16 inchers. The hope would be it would prevent the mucky stuff you started with, which is presumably clay/silt that heaved it’s way to the surface.
And yes. Without Olympic aspirations, or the funds to tear the whole thing out, id be trying to replicate the surface. What I would not do is have a section of arena that’s a drastically different footing - that’s been proven to cause injury, if I recall correctly - going back and forth across vastly different surface types over and over.
If they hadn’t turned out horses on this, that pawed through the sand layer, it might’ve been fine? But they did and the boggy spots have been growing since. Which makes sense I guess, because the edges have just been falling in.
