Building a backyard rink - any advice?

[Yukon Joe]

OK, so I started the most Canadian hockey dad thing ever - formed up for some backyard ice.

So I've never done this before, so curious if anyone has any advice.

So far, I have some plywood that was ripped down to 1' by 8' strips, forming a 16' by 32' area. Boards are held in place by some wooden stakes. The idea is once we get consistently below freezing I'll put in a white liner, fill with water and have some ice. (daytime high today was +5, so clearly not ready to make ice yet)

The idea for me at least is it's clearly not big enough to play a game or anything, but it should be good enough to practice some stickhandling, and to put out a net to practice shooting.

Who knows - this could be a total disaster, but I wanted to give it a shot.

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[Mr Jiggyfly]

OK, so I started the most Canadian hockey dad thing ever - formed up for some backyard ice.

So I've never done this before, so curious if anyone has any advice.

So far, I have some plywood that was ripped down to 1' by 8' strips, forming a 16' by 32' area. Boards are held in place by some wooden stakes. The idea is once we get consistently below freezing I'll put in a white liner, fill with water and have some ice. (daytime high today was +5, so clearly not ready to make ice yet)

The idea for me at least is it's clearly not big enough to play a game or anything, but it should be good enough to practice some stickhandling, and to put out a net to practice shooting.

Who knows - this could be a total disaster, but I wanted to give it a shot.

I made backyard rinks throughout my 20s for my buddies and I to play on, it’s been awhile but I still remember mostly how to do it.

Make sure you have a thick liner, don’t go cheap there, because fixing a leak before it freezes or during a thawing period can be a nightmare.

What is the deviation between your high side and low side?

Don’t fill your rink all at once or you will get shell ice, which is another nightmare.

Basically the top will be frozen and the bottom will be water, and your entire rink will be floating and could crack in half when you step on it… then you are f***ed.

I learned this the hard way my very first year when I was clueless.

Ideally you want to fill about an inch at a time and build layers. You really only need about 2-3 inches of ice to have a great skating surface.

I’d always resurface at night with hot water and it made my rink like glass in the morning.

You can use a normal hose if you know what you are doing. I used to use the Rink Rake because it made my life easier, but it doesn’t look like it’s around anymore.

Here is an idea of what it looked like, and they still seem to be selling alternatives like it:

Amazon.com

You can also make a homemade one using PVC, which I did when my Rink Rake cracked. It’s pretty easy and there should be DIY designs online.

Making the ice in layers is the most important part of having a backyard rink, but it’s really not that complicated once you get the hang of it.

 

[Golden_Jet]

If you get any leaves or anything on it, get them off, especially if sunny out,

 

[Yukon Joe]

I think deviation is about 4" from low side to high side. I could have gone for a bigger rink but tried to pick the flattest area of my back yard. But I've only eyeballed (which may be a mistake) so we'll see.

So advice so far is:

-build in layers
-make sure to get leaves or other junk out of there.

Good advice - thanks.

 

[DaveG]

friend of mine up in WNY used to do this every winter, just about every suggestion so far is along the lines of what we did.

Definitely make sure the liner is thick. Build in layers. Clear regularly. Re-surface with hot water as needed.

Wish I had information on what thickness we had with the boards that he built. Something too thin would obviously be an issue.

 

[Yukon Joe]

friend of mine up in WNY used to do this every winter, just about every suggestion so far is along the lines of what we did.

Definitely make sure the liner is thick. Build in layers. Clear regularly. Re-surface with hot water as needed.

Wish I had information on what thickness we had with the boards that he built. Something too thin would obviously be an issue.

That's a worry of mine - boards are too thin. I just went with some 7/16 OSB. It is held in by wooden stakes, and in particular if I'm filling in layers I think I should be OK, but again I've never done this - what do I know.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

That's a worry of mine - boards are too thin. I just went with some 7/16 OSB. It is held in by wooden stakes, and in particular if I'm filling in layers I think I should be OK, but again I've never done this - what do I know.

I made a 30x30 rink and used 10x12x2 boards.

They held up like a champ, even the one year my yard got messed up by a flood and my deviation dipped to like 8-9 inches.

 

[TGWL]

You should just pay for @Mr Jiggyfly travel, expenses and time.

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

You should just pay for @Mr Jiggyfly travel, expenses and time.

I think my rink making skills are a little rusty, since I did all of this 15-20 yrs ago.

I did make a small one for my daughter 5-6 yrs ago and it turned out pretty well, so I guess I can still put what I remember into practice.

 

[oldunclehue]

That's a worry of mine - boards are too thin. I just went with some 7/16 OSB. It is held in by wooden stakes, and in particular if I'm filling in layers I think I should be OK, but again I've never done this - what do I know.

That will work fine, I had a rink for a couple years during covid, just make sure you get a good liner. We used silage liner from a farmer which worked perfect. The clear plastic liner a lot of places have leaked.

Keep an eye on it while starting the process, leaks are hard to spot until its too late and half the water is pouring out.

OSB and wooden stakes will do fine and depth doesn't have to be very deep. If its not flat the water will even it out, some spots will just have a large depth difference.

Also....the first flood I did after using it, with warm water was a "OH SHIT" moment. The hot water definitly caused some large under the surface cracks in my ice....none issue for skating but sound like a gun shot going off when it happens.

 

[Oil Gauge]

I think deviation is about 4" from low side to high side. I could have gone for a bigger rink but tried to pick the flattest area of my back yard. But I've only eyeballed (which may be a mistake) so we'll see.

So advice so far is:

-build in layers
-make sure to get leaves or other junk out of there.

Good advice - thanks.

Go to home Depot and buy a line level and some twine, check your slope before you fill.

 

[Yukon Joe]

So an after-winter report:

-yard WAS more crooked then I was expecting. As I started filling it I could see one edge was going to be overflowing before the opposite edge had enough ice. I was able to add on some extra boards though.

-I got some surplus liner from someone else who built a rink (this was the extra they didn't use). They said it worked fine, but I had leaks. I would go thicker. I also should double and triple check all of my screws to make sure none of them puncture the liner - I'm afriad the tip of a couple screws might have been just pooking out.

-the weather just sucked. All of December it was too warm to make ice. Finally after Christmas I got the rink up and going - but then January hit and we had extreme cold. Then February hit and it got warm and started melting. Now early March the weather is perfect but when I went out to try and rebuild the ice I had a massive leak and just gave up.

The amount of effort required was really high for the amount of use we got out of it. And I still need to take the damn thing apart in a few weeks.

 

[JMCx4]

... The amount of effort required was really high for the amount of use we got out of it. And I still need to take the damn thing apart in a few weeks.

Makes the near-daily effort that my friends & I expended in our youth on pouring pots of hot water on their backyard patio seem not so foolish after all.

 

[jetsmooseice]

The amount of effort required was really high for the amount of use we got out of it. And I still need to take the damn thing apart in a few weeks.

It is a bit of a dice-roll when it comes to weather. I know here in the Peg it was a very short ODR season. They didn't open up until around Christmas which is becoming more and more the norm, but then there were a couple of early melts that did a number on the ODRs... most community clubs reopened after the first thaw, but the second thaw in late Feb was pretty much the end. So it was basically two months at most.

I never had a backyard rink mainly because I could never convince myself that it was worth the cost and hassle vs. just going to the community club a few blocks away, which is something we do a lot. Unless someone has a huge backyard and the resources to build a large rink, I think backyard rinks are probably best suited to the 3-7 learning to skate cohort, where you can have a small rink that is still useful.

 

[BB79]

My advice is find a good shallow pond locally and skate on that when it freezes. Backyard rinks are a metric crapton of work and you're at the mercy of the weather which almost never cooperates enough (at least here in the northeast US) to get a good amount of use from it. The last 2 winters would have been 100% waste of time and resources

 

[Yukon Joe]

I think I'll leave the final decision on whether to do this again based on how much work it takes to disassemble the rink.

When I had to extend the height of my boards I purchased some 3' rebar for additional support. I got my son to help pound them into the ground. The damn kid though pounded them 2' deep - they're going to be a real pain to get out.

 

[JMCx4]

... When I had to extend the height of my boards I purchased some 3' rebar for additional support. I got my son to help pound them into the ground. The damn kid though pounded them 2' deep - they're going to be a real pain to get out.

He's simply repaying you for those 3 AM sessions of watering the backyard rink in the bitter cold and the weekend mini-bag skates on Dad's favorite offspring.

 

[Frank Drebin]

I did a small backyard rink...one year.

If I had an acre to play with maybe it's a different story but the 20x30 wasn't big enough

 

[I am Bettman]

It is a bit of a dice-roll when it comes to weather. I know here in the Peg it was a very short ODR season. They didn't open up until around Christmas which is becoming more and more the norm, but then there were a couple of early melts that did a number on the ODRs... most community clubs reopened after the first thaw, but the second thaw in late Feb was pretty much the end. So it was basically two months at most.

I never had a backyard rink mainly because I could never convince myself that it was worth the cost and hassle vs. just going to the community club a few blocks away, which is something we do a lot. Unless someone has a huge backyard and the resources to build a large rink, I think backyard rinks are probably best suited to the 3-7 learning to skate cohort, where you can have a small rink that is still useful.

If you can get a good net and some pucks then it’s good for more experienced players as well. Shooting off ice never feels exactly the same as on ice.

 

[Yukon Joe]

I think I'll leave the final decision on whether to do this again based on how much work it takes to disassemble the rink.

When I had to extend the height of my boards I purchased some 3' rebar for additional support. I got my son to help pound them into the ground. The damn kid though pounded them 2' deep - they're going to be a real pain to get out.

Good news is that with soft and wet spring soil the rebar was no problem to get out. Disassembly was easier than expected (contrasting to building it was harder than expected).

 

[shakes the clown]

Here in Chicago the first step to building an outdoor rink is to first build a time machine so you can go back in time 20 years to when we still had winter in Chicago. Thanks a lot global warming!

Everyone I know with an outdoor rink managed to get less than a week of skating in this entire season. When I was a kid in the 70s and 80s we had outdoor ice from December till late February with no mid winter melting. Its crazy how much the climate has changed here.

 

[CN8]

Maybe easier cause I farm but I find making the rink super easy by just throwing straw bales down as my boards.
Makes for good place to sit too