Marden Civil

Marden Civil Here at Marden Civil we specialise in all aspects of pavement construction, Earthmoving and GPS machine control.

Experienced in everything from outback highways, driveways, to high profile civil projects.

Well seeing as a few people have checked on me. Here I am, busy, busy. Another arena. Drainage and all. This one has a d...
26/03/2026

Well seeing as a few people have checked on me. Here I am, busy, busy. Another arena. Drainage and all. This one has a diagonal crown so I took the baby blade to get that part right. Was handed a design and all for this. Doing the edge boards and all on this one. Look how straight they are! Just chipping away trying to ignore the cost of government crisis. Hard with diesel at 3.20 per litre currently though. Hope everyone else is getting there...

Both posis identifying as baby cranes, 140 blocks to move 3km up the road for a decent retaining wall. The beasts made l...
14/01/2026

Both posis identifying as baby cranes, 140 blocks to move 3km up the road for a decent retaining wall. The beasts made light work of it...
Shout out to my offsider matty who literally jumped in and out of the back of that truck 140 times as my dogman.

Stopped in and checked the topsoil job we did before Xmas. Has greened up beautifully! We seem to have had a bit of an i...
07/01/2026

Stopped in and checked the topsoil job we did before Xmas. Has greened up beautifully! We seem to have had a bit of an issue with the little mobile sprinkler though. Might have to float the dozer in to recover that... 🤣

This one is going to be a huge arena! Cut and moved over 1200 tonne with the 13t digger and posi. 👌
06/01/2026

This one is going to be a huge arena! Cut and moved over 1200 tonne with the 13t digger and posi. 👌

Yesterday's storms rolling around us...
04/01/2026

Yesterday's storms rolling around us...

The dam came up alright, had to find it first! 🤣 this thing has its own spring and makes water. Gaining an inch or so a ...
04/01/2026

The dam came up alright, had to find it first! 🤣 this thing has its own spring and makes water. Gaining an inch or so a day in height...

This one came up in my memories. 3 years ago I was at redhead running base coarse on the deere. I have been asked, do I ...
19/12/2025

This one came up in my memories. 3 years ago I was at redhead running base coarse on the deere. I have been asked, do I miss it?
Sometimes, I miss the kerb work, an old school dying art. Most contractors won't hire anyone without machine control these days. I never needed it for kerbwork. The kerb was my level, the slope meter my guide for crossfall. The rest was what I feel through my butt.
I do not miss the machine control, I do not miss owning a deere, parts prices were insane. The best grader to work, the worst to own...

Last gig for 25, dam clean out and arena pad cut. All with the view of middle brother... this will do just fine... 👌
19/12/2025

Last gig for 25, dam clean out and arena pad cut. All with the view of middle brother... this will do just fine... 👌

And the full arena drainage job here. This one was as per usual, no fabric between the sand and base, sand was slowly wa...
18/12/2025

And the full arena drainage job here. This one was as per usual, no fabric between the sand and base, sand was slowly washing out through the corners and sinking into the base. We removed all sand and stock piled. Corrected the base, the laid fabric, the drainage layer, top layer of fabric with glued joins. As the sand went back on, I was caught out, It was filthy, unwashed sand, full of topsoil and it compacted, hard and tight. Which is the opposite of what an arena should be. The answer to this was to introduce a few loads of clean silica sand. I worked it into and mixed up the existing sand and got it to break up and separate. Spent a few hrs with the harrows mixing it up and its been through the last few storms without getting tight again and the drainage is working. The fines will now wash out of the sand each time it rains.
It is extremely important to use the correct materials or it will fail fairly quickly.
As per any arena, Once the surface is down I let the horses mince it up a bit, get feedback from the riders on sand depth, then adjust.

Here's an arena I have done without drainage, the only reason I have built this one is due to the material involved. Goo...
11/12/2025

Here's an arena I have done without drainage, the only reason I have built this one is due to the material involved. Good rich red clay. It goes down tight and can be sealed. It I still separated with the class b fabric. This will stop contamination in the sand, the pad is shaped to have perimeter drainage at a later date so we built it backwards to allow use until then.
The good silica sand was used and it also contained the sand with edges pulled higher than the sand level to prevent anything washing out. Cleaned up all the downed trees and timber before hand also.
This pad is also on the top of a hill with a very small catchment on one side, without drainage I won't built them flat. This one falls to the back corner to allow some run off.

08/12/2025

And this is the working free draining base without the sand. Watch that water just disappear into the drain rock. The fabric is the filter that keeps the sand on top.

Arena drainage,To drain or not to drain? Well with the weather of late, I'd really prefer not to build these without dra...
08/12/2025

Arena drainage,
To drain or not to drain? Well with the weather of late, I'd really prefer not to build these without drainage. As I have explained in a previous post. Moisture is drawn through the sand by gravity, without a drainage layer it becomes a dead or heavy surface due to compaction from being wet. You can build a road on sand if you use enough water. But compacted sand is the opposite of what an arena surface should be.
There are a few options for drainage, The herringbone design, which is literally sub soil drainage trenches in a herringbone shape with perimeter drains. These work well in low rain areas. Perimeter drainage alone, this will cut off surface water from soaking the arena, everything that fall from the sky will still get caught in the sand. Then we have the vertical free draining base, this is the one I prefer to install as it works best. It is a 20/40/60mm drain rock blend contained in a class B fabric. This allows all moisture to fall through into the drainage layer. This design allows you to take control of the surface. You can even add water to this design as it drains quickly. The examples in these pics are of the 20/40/60mm vertical free draining base.

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Herons Ck 2439
Port Macquarie, NSW
2444

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+61409522687

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