Backyard Ice Rink Liners
My backyard ice rink post has been getting a lot of questions and suggestions about liners. This is the one piece of an ice rink that will likely be replaced year after year and there seems to be an ongoing search for a liner that is wide enough for a rink, strong enough to last the season, is white or clear, but as cheap as possible. I see a lot of options online, but the shipping costs tack on another 25-50% of the cost of the liner. Here are some suggestions.
- Lowes sells a 20′ x 100′ 6 mil clear plastic roll ($80). This is what a lot of people have been using. Perfect for a small rink, but if you want a larger rink you have to create a seam which is a PITA. The best suggestion I’ve seen so far is using a hot glue gun to seal a 1-2 foot overlap and tape the edges down with duct tape.
- Lowes also sells large tarps that have a silver side ($60). Not the best color, but I found a 30 x 50 tarp that worked great. I was hoping it would last more than one year, but the ice stretched it enough to create thousands of microholes. It leaks like a sieve the second year and is now covering my wood pile.
- Boat shrink wrap ($150-200). This stuff is available at marine shops and comes in wide widths and lengths and usually 6+ mil thickness. Call around for the best size/price.
- Silage tarps. This is the white ‘caterpillar’ you see covering hay at farms. Strong stuff in long lengths, but have to look around to find wide sizes.
The best advice is to open the phone book and try your local hardware stores, farm stores, and marine stores. I’ve gotten posts from people stopping at their locally owned hardware places that supply building contractors. Sometimes the store might have to special order it for you, but if you can find the liner locally you can avoid the steep shipping costs.
Judging from the other comments and emails I’ve gotten, most rinkers only get 1 season out of their liner. Please take advantage of Freecycle in the spring. There is always someone who has a warm weather project who is looking for a plastic cover or liner for a greenhouse that will be happy to take an old liner off your hands and keep it out of the landfill.
If you find any other liner solutions, please post them in the comments. I’d also love to hear if anyone has had success with one of the liners specifically sold for ice rink and how well they hold up season after season.
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on the issue of ice rink liners, if you live nearby a greenhouse with plastic roofs, they have to change their roofs every 3-5 years the plastic is 4-6 mil and is often 24+ feet wide x 100′s of feet long. it may take some close inspection to find a piece without holes (not too much actually); but the greenhouse owner likely wouldn’t charge a dime (the often have to pay to get rid of it)
ARG!!! I never replaced my liner from last year…..I know I stored it, but cannot remember for the life of me what condition it was in.
I’ll have to start looking locally or order online and expedite shipping, since the cold weather is upon us (and the hustle&bustle of the holidays are behind us!).
I was considering purchasing a liner from rinkrake.com and it was going to be 40 x 65 for 389$ cnd. They said they would sell it with no taxes and I could pick it up so it will end-up costing me 389$. My question for you or anyone out there is have you purchased a liner from them and if so was it thick good quality and how many years use did you get out of it?
I’ve never purchased a liner from them, but the rink rake I bought was pretty cheap. That led me to design my own.
Liners of that size are pricey anywhere and saving on shipping is a big plus. You have time before the hockey season so I would suggest calling around to farm store (silage tarps), marine stores (boat shrink wrap), and anything else you can think of. I’ve never had a liner survive the offseason so far.
You can actually buy liner made specifically for a rink. Texahoma.org rinks sells a variety of rink tarps will last multiple years.
What is the difference between these liners and the ones sold at NiceRink.com at a cheaper price?
Nicerink sells in the states while texahoma sells to Canada. This means that the Texahoma prices are in Canadian dollars(not American) and include shipping and brokerage fees from the states. This means that if you are buying as a Canadian Texahoma rinks is actually cheaper. Also, by buying from the Canadian distributor you save yourself the hassle of having to work with American money and cross border shipping.
Hey guys, Homehardware.ca has great rink liners. When doing a search key in “rink poly”. A 32×50 liner sells for $124.99+taxes.
I have used a couple of the liners from rinkrake and the results have been fine but the patching is a huge waste of time. This year I am just going to buy a polyweave liner from Boss Tools (in Windsor, I believe, so no customs, etc.) One of the other rink-daddies in my neighbourhood has used their liners for a number of years and never had a leak.
Last year I spent a good 18 hours patching leaks in the rinkrake liner – never again. The fact is it still leaked (even though I was patching with their specialized expensive patch tape). It barely held enough water to have a successful rink.
In my opinion, just get a one year liner and save some labour, heartache and worry.
At the end of the day, I don’t think it costs much more than re-using a rinkrake liner anyway.
Just a thought on patching and liner care: although patching can be a hassle(particularly if you have a lot of holes) they’re are steps you can take to make it easier. First you should take care to install your liner properly. Some people like to screw or nail their liner into place, but this results in a ton of holes and the possibility of ripping. Liners should be hung over the boards or form so when its filled with water the liner can easily expand to fill the rink. Once you have ice than you should cover up the exposed liner with kick boards or some liner protection system to prevent unnecessary puck or skate damage.
Never skate or step on your liner before you have ice- this will ruin it. If there is a thaw and some liner becomes exposed do not skate on it- re-flood and wait for the ice to return.
In the spring there should be a few holes; to patch them simply dry off the liner and apply patch to both sides of the hole.
Hi Nick et all,
When my kids (oldest one) was old enough to skate I lived near an outdoor rink and it was great fun. I’ve since moved back out to the country (fall 2006) and have been doing a rink every year (that outdoor rink was a great way to spend the winter!).
So the first year I just through a hose in the snow (the land underneath wasn’t landscaped at all) and left it there a few hours. It froze alright but the snow was all melted. My kids (5yrs, 3 and 1) enjoyed a brownish 10′x10′ surface with muddy protrusions that year just outside the back door (easiest rink I ever made…but poorest quality imaginable).
The following year I went the snow route. I did a 20 x 30 ish foot surface and used a lawn sprinkler overnight a few times to get it going before flooding with an open hose. What I learned there of particular interest to Nick is that snow can be a good safety feature around the edges. I could also go on the rink with the kids (then 6, 4 and 2) but couldn’t do much actual skating
Last year I decided I wanted the workout. I bought a 6mil (recommend thicker but 6 mil can work well enough) 40×100 foot silage plastic at a local farm co-op for under about $160. I wasn’t concerned about hockey so I bought plywood ( 9 sheets) for the sides and cut them in 1′ x 8 ‘ strips. I had rebar from when I built so I pounded that into the dirt every 4 feet (lots of 18″ pieces!!) and used copper U-shaped pieces to screw the boards to the plywood. Those were also leftovers for me!
The liner was unfolded and installed on an initially calm day….the wind picked up and I needed 2 helpers sitting on the liner upwind to prevent it from rolling away (recommend extra helpers just in case!!!).
While it was calm i had started with stapes (DON”T DO IT!). The tarp ripped right off as soon as the wind picked up (hence the extra bodies) and left a pile of holes. I ended up using extra plywood strips and strapping which I screwed right through the tarp a the top of my boards on the inside. This worked well enough but….
Right away, I learned all about the problems you can have with liners if you’re not paying attention to details.
1) The ice will rip through the liner, especially in the corners if you haven’t made sure the liner is going right into the tip of the corners/edges along the bottom of the boards
2) I had mature weeds which had been mowed, rather than grass. The stumps of the weeds came through the liner in a whole bunch of places! This year I didn’t cut the area, I just hand picked the thick stuff and rolled over the other stuff with a landscaping roller to break over the remaining stuff
3) I was fortunate that my low and high points were within about 7″ of each other, but the amount of water I required for a then 96′x36′ foot rink was unreal. And all the leaking caused me to have fits! One night at around 11:30 (after about a week of filling!), I turned off the water but went back out just to check things out. I heard a rather disturbing draining sound and that’s when I discovered I had a hand sized hole in one of the corners! The water was barely making any progress! I used goop and all kinds of stuff as I froze my hands in icy waters and ended up putting vapor barrier over the holes, sealed with caulking and covered that with snow. So last year’s rink was a combo of liner (for scale) and snow for patching. BE CAREful when installing the liner!
4) Bring the liner in each spring. It took 2 of us a solid 4 hours of cleaning (brushing with a shop broom while the other sprayed water to loosen up the dirt).
The large rink was awesome. It was thin on one side due to all the leaking and sloped surface but I could do laps with the dog chasing me while pulling my kids in a sled and it was STILL the best rink yet. I felt for adults it could be wider though.
My biggest problem so far has been securing the liner.
—— ——
So now it’s 2009/10 and I’m sticking with the 36′x96′ footer. Actually I left the boards up all year.
We bought a roll of patching tape for about $12 dollars at the same co-op. I insisted on reusing the plastic. With the amount of holes I had though, I ended up needing the whole roll and over 2 full days to patch them all ( I use the term ‘all’ loosely here).
So far I’ve poured water in from the hose for several hours. I discovered another dozen holes and patched them up and started filling again the other day.
A wet/dry vacuum is your friend! I used that to drain areas with holes, wiped off the liner, and used a blow dryer to make sure the liner wasn’t still moist before applying tape…worked really well!
The rink will probably need 24 hours of filling to get it thick enough to skate on in the high spots. I could cut that down quite a bit if I level the site but that will have to wait until next year.
I’ve searched for and found 2 ways to hold the liner down but they don’t really work for my construction method of rebar and plywood.
1) The first is to have one run of lumber (say 2×6) for the boards, run the liner over theses, and install another run of lumber (2×3 is fine) over the first, pinching the liner between the two. Fasten the two runs of lumber with scraps of 2x lumber screwed in the top run and bottom run from the outside, ensuring to screw below the liner on the bottom run. Not bad, but lumber pricey!
2) The second method (preferred), is to make 2×6 (or 2×8 or 2×10) boards smaller than the liner by about 2 to 3 feet in each direction so that you can simply lay out the liner and slide it UNDER the boards themselves. Elegant, quick and cheap!
My plan for next year is potentially to reuse the liner a 3rd time, level my site, and possibly redo the boards using method 2 above. I have the luxury of space but storing the lumber is a consideration not to be taken lightly.
Hope this helps prevent others from making the same mistakes I made.
Jeffrey
Hey all,
I’m going to putting up my first rink this year (my son’s 4 and taking skating lessons so I want to get this going for him) My wife bought a 20 x 40 liner from nicerink and it appears to be fairly rugged. Here’s the question though, I’m looking for something to put on top of the 2 x6s (frame) to both protect (soften the blow) the kids from falling on them and also protect the liner, while also holding the liner. I was thinking of something like foam pipe insulation but need something larger (than I can find at HD or Lowes) to fit over the 2 x 6s. Any ideas? One more thing, as far as protecting the exposed part of the liner above the ice, I am going to get some cheap carpet, rip it down to ~6″ high (length will depend on what I can find) and then tuck that underneath the pipe insulation I put on top of the 2 x 6s. Thoughts?
You could just use the nicerink bumper caps and kickboards to achieve your objectives, or you can use foam pipe insulators(although they are a tad bit to small and tend to pup off). You can also use stables, office clips, or construct an inner form to hold the liner. To protect the liner I would imagine carpet would be to flexiable and probably end up falling off. It would be much better to buy a few sheets of 1/4” plywood and cut it into 6” strips; although this won’t last as long as the kickboards they will work for a season or two.
Here’s my well-engineered 2 cents worth on the subject:
I use a 6mil poly tarp from a local (Wisconsin) “old fashioned” contractor supply lumber yard. Last season it cost me $200 for a 40′x100′ roll, this year it was only $120 for the exact same thing (what economic recovery?)… I didn’t try to re-use the liner because I had cut it down to 60′x40′ (36′x56′ rink dimensions) and this year I used the full sheet (36′x96′ rink dimensions).
For kickboard I used 3/8″ OSB (Oriented Strand Board) because it’s super cheap, and because Home Depot happily ripped 4′x8′ sheets into 8″x8′ strips (they did the side boards too, more on those later). Then I predrilled holes every few feet in the top inch and screwed these boards right through the liner (screw holes were at roughly 7″ above the ice surface, so plenty of room for more water without leaks, but might make re-use a little harder next year due to “needing perfect alignment”). The kickboards from last year are a bit “swelled” up from the water/weather exposure, but they seem like they’ll be fine for at least this year and hopefully more. My “outer walls” are 16″x8′x3/4″ pressure treated plywood held up by 24″x3/4″ masonry forming round “nail stakes” pounded in to a depth of about 14″ (10″ exposed). I considered the plastic nice-rink brackets with the integral stake, however the local soil is very rocky.
This system is ROCK SOLID, but I only have a total of about 6 1/2″ of pitch over the entire area, so my deepest water depth is about 10″ (minimum ice thickness of 3 1/2″), not too hard to hold that back… My hydrostatics approximation tells me the total force distributed over an 8″ long section (supported by just 2 of the 3/4 nail-stakes) is about 180 pounds.
The one dilemma I am still struggling with is the bumper cap idea, and nearly 300 lineal feet of it from nice-rink is probably not in my budget this year. ($350 +S&H) I’ll just tell the kids to either toughen up or stop falling on the boards!
Hi there –
I should have read up on this in November, but time and other commitments got the brunt of my attention. I finally got my boards and tarp sent up and have been filling the rink up for the past 16 hours and will let the hose go a few more. I didn’t realise that most people only got one year out of their tarp – I assumed I would get two. When I inspected it, the liner seemed fine, but now that I”ve been filling it I realise that it is leaking on the South and East side of the rink. It seems to be leaking through really tiny holes though and I am wondering if the rink is a lost cause or if it is salvageable.
There is already a really good layer of ice formed on 95% of the rink, so patching is likely not an option.
Any advice?
If its cold enough, the freeze might beat the leak in a race. The problem you could have is shell ice, where the surface is frozen, but there are air pockets underneath. I think your best bet at this point is to let it freeze and if it does create a big air pocket, pack it with snow, add enough water to absorb into the snow, but not melt it, and let that freeze. Snow is that best tool for patching ice (just look at NHL refs when they scrape some ‘snow’ off the ice, pack it, and give it a squirt with the water bottle). Your real problem will be if there is a warm spell that melts the rink and you leak some more.
Good luck!
John
I have two holes in my plastic at the corner and where my boards meet in the first twenty four feet. I have plugged them and they slowed but the continue to leak. The holes appear to be where the board meets the ground. I tool some thin plasticity and put it under where the leak is to try an slow in. I then packed around the boards to try and freeze it.
I am wondering if there is anything else I can do to try and stop it. This is my first attempt and I went with 24×36 and have invested a great deal in lumber and water at this point! If you have Ang suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks in advance!
For repairing rink liners, grab a can of the spray rubber you see on TV You can spray it on, then slap on a plasting patch and spray the edges.. it worked great for my rink last year but I can’t remember the name of it.. its on TV every hour showing them spray a screen dood and use it as a boat bottom.