outdoor horse pen footing

riptides · Apr 9, 2003

I'm interested in finding a way to keep the mud and clay seperate and underneath the crushed blue stone I'll be putting in our outside horse pen area. It's a muddy mess right now. We've added drain tile, but it's still terribly muddy with all the clay. I've heard of a felt-like material that can be layed on top of the clay/dirt, and then you put 6 or more inches of crushed blue stone on top of that. Does anyone know what this is called?

JimMc · Apr 9, 2003

Around here, to keep mud from pumping up through driveways we use a fabric commonly called "landscape cloth". Allows water to permeate but keeps gravel and soil separate.

cowboydoc · Apr 9, 2003

It's called geotextile cloth.

PhilNH5 · Apr 10, 2003

Richard has it right - geotextile cloth. I built 2 patios back in MD. On one I put down the geotextile cloth prior to the sand and then the loose-set bricks.
On the second one (built 2 years later) I couldn't get that cloth. The guy at the building suppy convinced me that the landscapers fabric would work just fine. It did - for a year. The following year the original patio, now 3 years old looked great. Nice and level with tight fitting bricks. But the new patio was uneven and individual bricks were sticking up. I spent time each spring prying up bricks and adding small amounts of sand to re-level. Never had to do that with the geotextile fabric.

Phil

gerard · Apr 10, 2003

landscape fabric is made to keep weeds from coming through, not for traffic. Call a contractor supplier, ask for geotextile fabric as stated. It comes in rolls. I think a 300 foot roll by 12 foot wide was about $300. Not too expensive but works great. Goes under all new roadways now a days and will do exactly what you hope - keep the mud from migrating up. Trick is to have enough running crush on top so you don't catch it with your blade/rake as you spread/level the stone. Easiest way is to dig a 6 inch deep narrow trench where the one end will go, bury the end of the fabric into the trench, do the same thing on the other side where it will end, then dump/spread the stone. That way you have no looses ends around and the fabric stays flat. (No I didn't think this up on my own, I did it the hard way and was told this by a contractor afterwards!! /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif)