Water for outside hockey rink (Need help)

[rox]

Once a nice rink is built can't the boys keep it clean by shoveling? I grew up on a lake and our nice neighbor would drive his jeep onto the lake and plow us out a nice rink. Then after that, us kids shoveled. If you get a lot of kids playing that is more kids to shovel. You are a nice dad.

 

[tcreeley]

I fill the horses water trough wwekly using a garden hose and the outside water faucet on the house. It is about 200+ feet from the house. I drain the hose after each fill up. (Lift the hose in a loop over your head, starting at the house end - unhooked and as you lift the water runs away to the low end and onto the ground. I coil as I pull the hose in.)
I did a rink for the kids when they were small on the lawn. Took a lot of water. Snow is absorbent! you might try a large poly tarp or plastic and frame a border, then ice that.

Good luck!

 

[CalG]

hose is cheap compared to the options. 100 meters isn't that far.

Just drain and coil the hose and bring it indoors when not being used. One or two of those wind up hose reels will make the task pleasant enough.

 

[PILOON]

Not really applicable here but we'd flood the lake surface for nice skating.
We'd chainsaw a nice hole, submerge a sump pump with the normal plastic hose and flood away.
Once finished flooding we'd submerge the pump and hose under the ice and cover the hole with a 2" slab of foam insulation.
This way the hose and pump never froze and the foam kept the the hole opened for the next week end.
Saved draining, hauling and storing the rig.

 

[Nromes]

Years back my dad had a 550gal container that he used a lot of water for work. We would grab 5 gallon buckets and go to the river in town in fill it up by hand. 30-45 mins we were done. You could set you up a12v water pump to fill it, which would take longer. Unless you do both or 2 pumps. There are a lot of options.
Also you could set up some rain barrels on your house or garage, if you are still possibly getting any rain. A lot of rain can accumulate just from 1 storm.

 

[tcartwri]

Not really applicable here but we'd flood the lake surface for nice skating.
We'd chainsaw a nice hole, submerge a sump pump with the normal plastic hose and flood away.
Once finished flooding we'd submerge the pump and hose under the ice and cover the hole with a 2" slab of foam insulation.
This way the hose and pump never froze and the foam kept the the hole opened for the next week end.
Saved draining, hauling and storing the rig.

That's a good idea.

 

[gogojuice]

I usually set up at 30x60 rink using tarps and using 2x10 as the boards. Right now I am using multiple garden hoses. Some of the ones that expand to get to the rink now. The initial fill does take some time, but I use the hoses for that. I was looking at more of the resurfacing idea. I connect it to a PVC pipe with a towel on the end which smooths the ice out.

The hoses are the pain though, especially if I would like to make the rink larger and move it away from the house. There would be a significant amount of trenching that would need to occur around trees in order to get out there. There is no power out there either if I move it. I could however solve that by using the PTO generator.

Thanks for the suggestions

 

[otlski]

Wow, those are great pictures gogojuice. I had a rink when the kids were young and we had many great days and nights out there. Ours was 75 feet from the house so I used a hose run into the basement spigot for warm days on weekends. The hose always came back inside. During the week while they were in school it did not get beat up to bad. On those nights I would fill a hand pump sprayer with hot water and do touch up only. The hot water acted as a force multiplier as is melted some choppy ice as it went down adding more water to the equation. The rink lasted maybe four years. After that the beavers came in and built us a pond right on the edge of the property.

 

[Streetcar]

I agree with calg use garden hose with reel.
I have a reel that holds 250 ft of hose

 

[tcartwri]

I agree with calg use garden hose with reel.
I have a reel that holds 250 ft of hose

You wouldn't be able to reel it in in those temperatures unless you buy real rubber hoses.... which I haven't seen for a while. Plus you have about five minutes to get everything drained when it's below -15 or so. Spent many a midnight flooding at -20 under the stars. It was amazingly peaceful.