ODR - Outdoor Rinks

[AKRISONER]

been a weird year but every year i at least manage to get one weekend in with a solid rink built out on the lake. Thats at least the plan for this weekend. May need some adjustments to the ice though this year.

For those that have used a sump pump to flood the lake...any tips? Ive had problems in the past with flooding creating shale ice rather than solidifying how you want it to. Any tips are greatly appreciated. Heres a photo from last year of one of many ODR's i built.

I will post more photos after this weekend!

[irishfield]

All we've ever used is an auger in the corners. Amazing how fast you can pump water and great if you have someone on skates with a squeegy broom to move it while you run the auger.

[Old Ironmaker]

Make pals with the local Fire Dept. That's how the buys made their rink on the lake when lakes froze in Sunny Southern Ontario. 

[LostAnotherOne]

Any problems getting the Zamboni out there?

[AKRISONER]

On 2/12/2020 at 4:27 PM, irishfield said:

All we've ever used is an auger in the corners. Amazing how fast you can pump water and great if you have someone on skates with a squeegy broom to move it while you run the auger.

Might have to try this out...gotta be careful those pucks don’t go down the holes lol

[DRIFTER_016]

[Old Ironmaker]

On 2/12/2020 at 2:50 PM, AKRISONER said:

been a weird year but every year i at least manage to get one weekend in with a solid rink built out on the lake. Thats at least the plan for this weekend. May need some adjustments to the ice though this year.

For those that have used a sump pump to flood the lake...any tips? Ive had problems in the past with flooding creating shale ice rather than solidifying how you want it to. Any tips are greatly appreciated. Heres a photo from last year of one of many ODR's i built.

I will post more photos after this weekend!

That photo says Canada more than anything else can. Great pic Akrisoner. 

[kickingfrog]

The challenge with making ice outdoors is the cold is "coming" from the top and going down. Rinks with refrigerant of course do the opposite. If you put too much water on top of the ice the top freezes and then the water underneath starts to freeze. Water expands as it freezes and the previous frozen top pops off into that shale. Keep the coats of water thin and let it freeze solid before coating again. The other trick that works at home (if you have access to indoor tap) is to use thin coats of hot water. It helps to smooth out the skate ruts. On a lake, shovelling off as much of the snow and skate shavings first help if you don't have hot water.

[grimsbylander]

^^^ 100% correct. When building a rink, think freezing rain...not flood. 
when my boys were young, every year I built a backyard rink with boards and lights. The rink had a 2’  slope from one end to the other! You learn fast that a fine spray is the way to go. 

[AKRISONER]

well we put the method Irish suggested to test and it worked until mother nature screwed us over. Really frustrating. I spent 7.5 hours first snowblowing, then shovelling then flooding and scraping and flooding and scraping again. The problem? 60kmh winds that kept drifting fine snow onto my flood creating crunchy slush which ruined my rink. I was annoyed but happy to at least learn something. I kept it simple. Once the rink was scraped off well. i drilled holes in the corners and proceeded to "pump" the auger flooding the rink. I then had my buddys push the water using shovels out away as far as you possible could. This simply caused all of the ice to get wet, but not really have standing water. any deeper ruts were typically difficult to scrape clean and the snow that collected in them got saturated and basically filled themselves in. The system was working beautifully until the wind had other ideas. We did have one maybe 10x10 section of ice that the snow wasnt blowing on and it was beautiful. we scraped some of the slush off too and still tried to skate for about a half hour out in the wind storm. If you stood still the wind would push you across the entire rink! A lesson for me though that now I know how to build a rink whenever I want even if the ice isnt perfect. As long as the wind is down and the air is cold!

[pics]

My wife and daughter really wanted a rink but I stood firm and said no... it takes too much of my time just to melt away.. this year has been one of those where it would have melted before it was done..