Postby PCMM » Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:23 am
We just finished "rescuing" our local pond. Some kids only shovelled off part of it the last time they skated, and then we had a bit of a melt, resulting in mounds of frozen trash on varous spots in the middle of the pond making it unskatable!!! Me and a few dads got together over the last 4 nights and have made it skatable again. We're 80-90% there, but it took alot of scraping, chiselling and flooding to bring it back. The essential tools for this work are
1) a pressurized water source, or a portable pump. We purchased a small engine driven pump from a local kijiji add, (similar to this: ) also get a length of hose long enough to reach at least half the distance of your rink surface. we're using 50' of 1/14" sump pump hose (its cheap, about $8 for 24' so when it gets ruined, its not a big deal)
The pump is also good for erroding the high spots. One thing we had to modify on the pump was the rubber feet, they just slide around on the ice!! the torque of the motor will make the pump walk away from the hole! We drove a screw through each rubber foot so the point was facing down into the ice. It no longer walks around when its running!!
2) scrappers and shovels to clear and fix up any lumps and junk on the ice
3) either a small auger to drill a hole in the ice to get to the water ( or an axe to do the same)
4) water proof gloves!
Our repair has taken 4 nights so far. The first 2 nights took the most time. It was a lot of scraping and chiselling to "delete" the mess that was on the ice and alot of flooding to even out he surface. The first two nights we ran the pump for an hour each time ( at 120l a minute, thats nearly 1800 gallons of water). On the thrid night we ran it for 45 minutes and were happy with the result. Last night we had 80% of the ice looking nice and smooth so only had to run the pump for 20 minutes to get the flood we wanted on the ice. A couple more floods and I think we'll be in shape to start using a home-boni on the ice to maintain it!
which leaves the last item
5) a home-boni or rink rake(google it) to maintain the ice surface.
This is my first year doing this at the local pond but the local parents (dads specially) have been really receptive to the idea and have come out to help with things! We're going to put up a sign ( maybe next year with councils approval) to try and get people to clear off ALL of the ice when they use it.