Backyard Ice Rink II

Since the later 2/3 of December and the  first one and a half week of January was warm. Warm as in around +5 C every day, no snow to be found anywhere and my first backyard ice rink was well gone before Christmas. Well winter came and the last two weeks has been around -15 C every day, sometimes as warm as -2 C and sometimes as cold as -25 C but -15 C seem to be the standard temperature.

So without too much trouble it was easy to create another backyard ice rink, the second one this winter. And I learned a few things more about creating the ice. -5 C is bit too warm. The water doesn't freeze fast enough and it tends to melt too much of the already made ice so you get bubbles and it may break trough the ice wall on the sides. You make one to contain the water as you make the ice thicker. -20C and colder is too cold. If you want lots of thick ice and a good ice wall it's great. When you have come to the other end of the ice rink the first part you have hosed down has already frozen over. And also if you get a lot of water on it so you get wave movement on the ice those wave pasterns can also freeze over. Not an even smooth ice but great for building mass. -15 C is ideal, you get all of the water you want on the ice and and it freezes slough enough to build a smooth surface.

Backyard Ice Rink

Last week winter came and the cold temperature cam in the weekend and in the beginning of the week. It was around -15 C. So it was time to to start constructing our wintery backyard ice rink. Well perhaps not so much constructing. More of shoveling a bit of snow and standing there with a water hose morning and evening. It looked great.

But yesterday it was raining and today it's  +5 C. It would be even better if it froze over now but according to the weather forecast that wont happen until the weekend. The freezing temperatures will also only last over the weekend. After that we got more warm weather. Well I hope they are wrong, because in this weather it wont be much of an ice rink by Christmas.

Backyard ice rink

About 3 months ago I stated on this blog that I'm blogging again. I wrote one post after that. Well her I am again. Maybe I should write more and think less. It's really not that difficult, shouldn't be ;-).

Anyway I'm making backyard ice rink. Or it's really it's not that difficult. I just bring out the water hose and stand there for a while every evening or whenever I'm at home not doing anything else. After the last snowfall I used the hose without the the shower head and that caused a bumpy ice. Otherwise it would be ready now. Well it's my first ice so mistakes is a part of the process.

Anyway tonight when I get home from work I will remove the bumps with a shovel and spray on one last layer of water and it should be perfect on Saturday. I'm working most of the weekend and my wife is away on a training/health/exercise weekend. So parents-in-law will take care of the kids on Saturday at our house and have an ice rink 10 m away from the front door.