Backyard Ice Rink Maintenance Tips
December 23, 2005
I’m not an expert at backyard ice rinks, but last year I made a lot of mistakes and I figured I’d pass along what I learned.
Here are my top ten backyard ice rink mistakes:
1) Using 2 Tarps - I tried to go with a 24 x 24 rink and using 20 ft plastic sheeting. I bought some adhesive and tried gluing the pieces together, but it was a disaster. Even if I HAD bought the correct glue (the stuff I got did not stick to the plastic), I had a helluva time keeping the plastic on the ground. The slightest breeze messed it all up. So I decided to lay down the plastic with a nice 10 ft overlap. No good…the water kept leaking out and creating ’shell ice’. What a nightmare. Note: Two tarps might work with the correct adhesive and duct tape. If you’ve gotten it to work, let me know what you used.
2) Adding water from the hose - That water from the hose may feel cold on your skin, but it is much warmer than your ice. Just putting the hose in your rink to try and build layers is asking for trouble. The water will melt a hole and the warm water will find its way to the bottom. Worse yet, after it melts under your ice it will leave air pockets and create, you guessed it, shell ice.
3) Leaving the hose outside - Yeah, a no brainer, but who knew what a royal pain in the ass it is to thaw out a 20 foot section of hose! My solution…put the hose in a rubbermaid to make carting it in and out easier and with no drips on the floor.
4) Using a sprinkler - Seems like a nice even distribution of water when you’re trying to dodge the water, but on the ice it just melted lines and made a rough surface to skate on.
5) Leaving a running hose on the ice - Seems innocent enough, but you’ll be amazed how fast the how will start melting into your ice. It is cool in a Mr Wizard kind of way, but the rut it leaves will give someone a nice toe pick.
6) Dumping garbage cans of water to build ice - Seemed like a good idea and I know it can work, but the sudden dumping of warm water will crack the ice thus giving it an opening to seep underneath and create more shell ice.
7) Leaves - I didn’t think much of the leaves that blew onto the rink. Well, I didn’t think much of them until the next sunny day when the leaves had magically sunk an inch into the ice and left some nice holes. Dark colors + sunlight can do bad things to your rink.
Branches - Make sure you rake the yard well before you put your liner down. I had to do a quick patch with duct tape when a branch poked through my liner as I was filling it this fall. The duct tape worked well, though!
9) Shovel - You might get away with leaving an inch of snow on your driveway, but if you walk on your rink after a light dusting you’re going to end up with frozen footprints to skate on.
10) Ow, my back! - Another reason why I went from a 24 x 24 rink to a 16 x 24 was the snow clearing. A large rink is like adding a second driveway to shovel…except this one is covered in ice! Maybe next year I’ll build a ramp for the snow blower.
There you have it. Hopefully this list will prevent someone else from repeating my mistakes. If you have one to add, post it in the comments.
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4 Responses to “Backyard Ice Rink Maintenance Tips”
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I made a 28′ x 35′ rink using Vapour barrier ($68 at home depot). It comes in 8.5′ x 175′ and I cut it in 4 and spliced it together using clear duct tape and a silicon used to fix aquariums. Another idea is to purchase white boat shrink wrap 32′ x 40′for $150 from plasticworld.ca.
I have a 10″ drop on one side and it took about 5 floods to get it done. My buddy had the same drop and he used a white tarp from home depot and filled 12″ all in one shot and let it freeze. It worked. Neither of us got shell ice.
Hello. Great tips.
I’ve had 10-15F at night for the last 3 days, and my the first 10 inches (on the “drop” side of the rink) won’t freeze to the bottom. I can’t even get to the layer that reaches the rest of the perimeter. Have any practical tips for combating he ambient warmth from the ground or puting in an additive to make the ice freeze more easily? I was thinking about starting over and first layering flattended cardboard boxes before the liner.
Thanks for the great tips.. I’m going to start building mine this weekend, hopefully it wont’ thaw out before it has a chance to freeze fully.