Making choices for your at-home ice rink and be more than a little tricky. There are a lot of options to choose from, and there’s a good chance that you want to be sure that you’re picking the best option for you. One thing that we commonly hear from people is that they’re trying to figure out if synthetic ice is better or worse than real ice for this. People will chime in with all sorts of different answers, but today we’re going to get to the heart and soul of this issue and help you determine once and for all which is best for you.
No matter the reason why you’re considering setting this up, you deserve to know the best things that you can use for this task. The highest-quality experience is what you’re looking for, and that’s what you should get. No matter what kind of budget you’re on, we’re going to settle this debate once and for all, and you’ll be able to directly benefit from us doing so by walking away from this article with new knowledge about what’s best for your home in this situation.
Which is More Portable?
When you’re setting up an ice skating rink in your home, the most portable option is likely going to be the best. No matter where you set up your skating rink, there’s a good chance that you’ll need to use that space for other things sometimes. Maybe you need to host a party to celebrate a birthday, graduation, or some other big event in someone close to you’s life. When that happens, you’ll want to make sure that you can move the ice skating rink without too much effort so you can actually facilitate the event.
Real ice can pose some huge issues for this. Setting up a real ice skating rink takes an incredibly cold space that has to be flooded and kept at a particular temperature. The teardown wouldn’t be too difficult if you had enough warning and the proper drainage set up where you have it set up. All you’d need to do is let the synthetic ice thaw and drain out through the drainage you have set up. Otherwise, it becomes a lot harder and you’ll need to get buckets to scoop the water out. That would take a lot of time to achieve.
Either way, with real ice you’re looking at a process that is always going to be time-intensive and might be a little labor-intensive as well. That’s not ideal, especially if it’s sprung on you at the last minute that you have to host. There’s nothing worse than having to scramble to get your ice skating rink to melt in less time than it should take. That could also mean that you’ll be forced to be underprepared for such an event, and if you’re concerned about the opinions of your friends and family, that could be more than a little devastating.
On the other hand, artificial ice comes in tiles. You can set it up pretty much anywhere and setting it up, tearing it down, and moving it are pretty easy. You just have to disconnect the tiles and move them piece by piece to somewhere they won’t be in the way. Some people would recommend using a tarp to cover the tiles so they don’t get dirty or cause any messes where you temporarily store them, but you don’t have to do that if you don’t mind having to clean a little bit after you move the tiles back to their original spot.
Setting the rink back up is just as easy. All you need to do is reconnect the tiles the way that they were before. Because the tiles are interlocking, it’s really just that simple. You’ll want to be sure that you’re getting the tiles together flush so it doesn’t cause any issues the next time you or someone else tries to skate on it, but other than that it’s incredibly easy. Depending on the size of your rink it could take as little as half an hour and as long as a few hours to get everything set back up.
Which is More Cost-Effective?
Now for one of the most important things when it comes to your choice, which option is going to cost you more money. There’s definitely nothing wrong with being aware of which option will cost you more, after all, you probably have a budget to think of for this project that you don’t want to exceed. Knowing which one will cost less will definitely help you know for sure which one is better for your project, and will also help you keep more of your money in your wallet where it belongs.
To continue the trend that we’ve already started, let’s start by looking at real ice. The logistics of having a real ice skating rink at your house are an absolute nightmare. You need to have a space that can be heavily temperature controlled so that the ice can form and stay for extended periods of time. That level of climate control is incredibly expensive. The cost of water is a lot less than the cost of artificial ice tiles, but you need a lot more than a flooded room to make an ice skating rink that actually works for ice skating.
On top of that, you need to make sure that you have the proper drainage systems in place. Without that, any time you empty out the ice rink you’ll need to get buckets or shop vacuums to clear out the room. If you’ve ever had to have a plumber come fix anything in your house, you know how expensive getting the proper drainage set up is. On top of that, you need to pay for maintenance. If the ice gets messed up for any reason, you could have to drain the whole rink in order to be sure that it’s fixed correctly, which can be expensive both for time and money.
Now, let’s take a look at artificial ice. As we mentioned, artificial ice tiles are a lot more expensive than just water, but that price provides you a whole lot more flexibility. Because of the modular nature of the tiles, all you need to do if one breaks is replace that single tile and you’ll be back to skating in no time. You could even shrink the entire rink to accommodate the missing tile, meaning that you don’t need to lose out on more than a little bit of skating.
Upkeep of artificial ice is also a lot cheaper. The less advanced tiles need to be lubricated, and that lubrication can add up over time but you only need to use it every few months. Other than that, you just need to clean the rink from time to time. There is no set temperature that the rink needs to be kept at, and as such, you can just throw it in your backyard and call it good enough. That’s significantly cheaper than trying to maintain an ice ink in your house because you aren’t paying for a bunch of refrigeration.
The one thing that does come out to be more expensive using artificial ice over real ice is the maintenance of your blades. On average, artificial ice wears down blades twice as fast as real ice. If you go to a professional that could mean that you’re doubling how much money you give them to sharpen your blades. If you sharpen your own blades, then you’re likely to spend double the time doing that. Fortunately, regardless of if you sharpen your own blades or have someone do it for you, that cost is still cheaper than trying to keep an entire room frozen all the time.
There are a few places in the world that it would actually make more sense to use real ice for your rink. If you live in a place like Alaska where the entire country is frozen over most of the year, you might be able to get away with having a real ice skating rink without it costing you a small fortune. On the other hand, if you live in Arizona, for example, you would need to be very rich in order to pull this off and might still end up bankrupt at the end of it.
Getting Your Personal Skating Rink to its Full Potential
If you’re investing in a skating rink for your home, there’s a good chance that it’s something that you’re passionate about. It makes sense, skating is incredibly fun and definitely a good thing to be passionate about in general. Fortunately, it’s never been easier to get a skating rink set up at your own home while knowing exactly what the best option is for you. Whether you just like skating for the fun, you’re an amateur figure skater, or even a professional hockey player, you deserve to know exactly what the best choice is for your skating rink.