Ok this may be a crazy idea-just seeing if anyone has tried it or had thoughts on it. My deep end is 8 inches and most likely will never freeze b/c of crappy Chicago winters. I do get a fair amount of water in the corner when we have a full game going especially with adults on the ice. No cracking just water. By my drill's estimates, I have about 4 inches of water under the 4 inch ice slab in the deep end. Does it make any sense at all to pump some of that underneath water out with a wet vac. Logic would seem to dictate that the slab would crash in that corner b/c of now empty space. Even if the slab fell down into the empty space does it make sense that I could then put water on top of the sunken corner to even it back up with the rest of ice to get a solid corner. i will certainly be building the yard up over the summer but just trying to keep people dry the rest of this season.

I've never done this, but you're right....I would expect the slab to crack somewhere, probably in a major way, and anything you'd gain from removing the water and trying to build it back up would be lost by the giant chasm at center ice.

If you truly never freeze to the ground and want to avoid the seepage, I'd try to put sand bags or bags of mulch under that end so that instead of 8" of water/ice, you only have 3 or 4, which should freeze solid.

Don't do it. You will have an uneven slab and it will crack. I know this because we had a pesky leak one year and after a month, this is what happens. Here in CT, we never really freeze solid and it isn't that much of a problem. You either have to just put up with seeping water or... what we do is leave some snow at the edges of the rink when you clear it after a storm. You lose your boards (If you have much sticking up) and a few inches of width in the ice but it works. We kind of like the way the snowbanks look, too.

Good luck,

Jenn

thanks for the feedback. i will live with the water this year and not try anything crazy

Maybe I am crazy, but I tried lowering my slab and it worked great!

When I filled in December, I added 4" in shallow end and about 12" in the deep end, but we got so much rain and sleet that in certain parts of my rink it started to overflow. Not a serious problem, but with hockey pucks at $3.50 a piece, we were losing them in the bushes left and right because we had no more boards left...

So we got a real warm spell here in Chicago. Still 3-4" of ice, but my whole slab was floating...so I punched a small hole in one of the corners and then stuck the garden hose in, started sucking on the other end, and over the course of few hrs or so, lowered the slab by about 2".

I think the key was that the water was moving out slowly AND the whole slab was floating. Anyway, just thought I would chime in to say that it can be done, and I wouldn't hesitate again to do it, if I ever ran into the same problem...but again, I think the key is that the slab was floating.

Enjoy the deep freeze!

you can drain some water out like you did when it was partially floating and not frozen to the sides, but i think they were talking about taking water out when it was frozen to the sides and potentially creating an air gap. but yeah i think all of us have drained water out when it rained and we got a little too full