[knightrider]

Curious what the weather conditions were like when you built your arena and how it held up afterwards? I'm on schedule for a very small arena to be built weather dependent, but am curious what that means in the scheme of things since we are still in "winter" even though it seems almost like spring with wet weather...

[scrtwh]

spring... soon as the ground softened and the roads opened to heavy equipment.

[Hilary]

Had mine done in October so it had all winter to set/settle. Worked out perfectly as I wasn't tempted to ride on it. It probably depends on your location. Winter isn't usually an option in NH. Spring is wet, and summer you want to be riding.

[knightrider]

Had mine done in October so it had all winter to set/settle. Worked out perfectly as I wasn't tempted to ride on it. It probably depends on your location. Winter isn't usually an option in NH. Spring is wet, and summer you want to be riding.

Hence my question...lol. If they roll it and its really wet out, does it matter? I'm hoping not... I'm getting impatient to have it in! :-)

[kcmel]

We did ours in the spring. There were a few days here and there lost to rain, but overall it went well.

[horsepoor]

Access can be difficult when wet. I built mine in September, when it was dry here. We had to do a lot of dirt work and build an access road, and it is a lot easier to do that when dry. Then you have to get materials in for base and footing, and dry is better (or slightly wet...a few showers woud have been okay, but fully saturated ground and hard rain like the last couple of months here woud not have been good). Big rock/sand trucks don't do well in mud!

It is good if your builder can see the place when wet, however, as that can show him what kind of drainage issues there might be. Ours came up in the spring initially so got to see things wet and help determine location. Then we got on the list for our dry time todo the actual installation.

[MistyBlue]

Late winter/spring can work great or bite you in the butt. If the ground is too soft...contractors won't want to use heavy machines on unpaved areas. They make soft ground a deep, churned up nightmare and can get stuck. Depends on drainage and soil type where you're putting up the arena.
And unfortunately Mother Nature thinks it's hilarious to screw with us when we make weather-dependent plans.

But...they've been built in all seasons in all locations. Sometimes it's just tougher/takes longer. When we FINALLY built oour outdoor ring...after EIGHT years of waiting for one...Mother Nature gave me the finger for ages. A step would get done, downpours for few days with flooding. A week of drying. Another step would be started, freak snowstorm, etc and so on. Seemed like it took forever to build and at the time I was feeling rather dramatic about it, LOL! I turned rather Shakespearean, making long winded emotional speeches at the heavens.
But it got completed, didn't take half as long as I was expecting the weather to make it and it was all well worth it.

Congrats on the pending arena!

[PNWjumper]

We did ours in late spring/early summer. IIRC it coincided with the time it started to get dryer around here. It took the guy a couple of months to level, compress, and add everything, and I didn't let it sit or cure beyond that building time. I'm going on year 9 or 10 with a fabulous arena still (drains like a dream, which is the main thing around here!). But I'm not sure he couldn't have done the same thing pretty much any time of the year with the caveat that we really only have two seasons to contend with here.....8 months of cool and wet or the 4 months of warm and dry. No freezing temps or snow to deal with. So your mileage may vary greatly in another climate.

[jherold]

Repaired the drainage tiles and laid the base in October 2011. Then it got too wet. Completed the arena in August 2012 and was credited with ending the drought. (As soon as they brought the heavy equipment out, it rained for several days. Farmers thanked me but told me I should have done it sooner to save more of the crops)!

[Tom King]

I'd wait until they can drive the trucks in without leaving anything on the ground but light tire tracks. You don't want to get into it while the ground is really wet. Around here, at this time of year, I'd wait until later in the Spring.

I've built houses here for 40 years. I always made a point to get all the ground work finished before mid December at the latest-that is, after doing it too late one time.

[msj]

The barn and indoor were started in April and with a few delays I was able to bring the horses home in August.

The outdoor ring was started probably in July and finished in Oct. It took that long because the fellow that did it worked a full time job and did the arena evenings and weekends.

In both instances I was lucky that the ground was reasonably dry for the barn and indoor and very good for the outdoor.

[Bravestrom]

spring... soon as the ground softened and the roads opened to heavy equipment.

this - it was finished in June.

[2DogsFarm]

Indoor or outdoor?
Can't help you with out, but my indoor was started in late Spring - after the torrential & unusually frequent (that year) rains stopped.
Took my excavator 3 weeks to get the base the way he wanted, then the pole barn & indoor framing went up. Whole job was finished (after the base was done) in 3 weeks!
8 years later it looks & rides like new, but is used pretty infrequently - turns out I really prefer riding outside....

My "outdoor" is the lawn to the North of my house, West of the barn/indoor - about the size of a large dressage arena.
No prep needed, but I do check each Spring to make sure no vermin have tunneled or made burrows in the grass.

[horsepoor]

Indoor or outdoor?

Guess I should have asked this, as I assumed the OP meant outdoor and that is what my comments related to. I should have specified that.

[knightrider]

Guess I should have asked this, as I assumed the OP meant outdoor and that is what my comments related to. I should have specified that.

I can't afford an indoor so that question never crossed my mind...definitely an outdoor!