Backyard Ice Resurfacing (2024)

Ice resurfacing is truly one of my favorite things to do on mybackyard ice rink. I enjoy it tremendously and look forward to the timeI spend resurfacing our ice rink. For me, it is truly a very relaxingand peaceful experience.

At first ice resurfacing might sound a little complicated andtroublesome but it is not. After a while, you get an instinct for whenand how to do it efficiently.

There are many personal techniques you do pick up along the way.

First and foremost, ice resurfacing should be done at night when thetemperature drops and there is no sunlight, preferably on a non-windynight and when there is no snow falling. This will create a ripple-free,non-bumpy ice surface.

Prior to resurfacing, you should remove as much snow as possible offthe ice. You can use a flat shovel to get the snow off. Considerbrooming the snow off the ice. Getting it all off does provide asmoother finish to the end result.

Assuming at this point you have adequate ice depth, there are severalmethods you can use to resurface, depending on the time you have andthe final quality you wish to achieve.

Use Your Yard Hose!

You could quickly resurface using your regular yard hose. Start at oneend and move very slowly across the surface. As you move, keep the endof your hose on the ice so as not to create a splash. Always step/standon the side you are not spreading.

You could use cold or hot water, but if the temperature is very low,attaching your hose to hot water and flooding your surface with a verysmall layer of hot water produces the best finish. You will need a Sink Faucet to Hose Adaptor in order to run hot water through your hose.

You should know that if you play or train for hockey on your outdoorice skating rink, skating and stick handling on a surface finished withhot water is awesome. It produces a very nice, flat and smooth surface!Probably the best finish of all.

When using hot water, please be careful not to leave your hoserunning alone on the ice. Leaving your hot water running onto the ice onthe same spot for as little as 10 seconds is enough to melt a holeright through your thick ice foundation.

You'll not be able to resurface or flood until you've patched the hole.

Cold water left running will also melt your ice, however it will takemuch, much longer. When flooding with cold water during a very coldnight, you can afford to leave a cold water hose running outside aloneand come back after a couple of minutes to move it.

Dumping it!

Another method, which is a little more complicated but produces a verynice, evenly level ice surface, involves dumping a large amount of wateron the ice at once. You would fill up a large barrel, or severalbarrels depending on your rink size. Once they are all full you can justdump all the water onto the ice at the same time.

Ice Resurfacing Tools, Equipment and Machinery

There are also many resurfacing tools and equipment you can buy as well,which wil make the task of ice resurfacing so much easier!

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