Cost Benefit of Covering An Outdoor Rink

 The magic of outdoor rinks in Canada is that, of course, that they are outdoors. However, small communities and remote villages often do not have enclosed arenas because of cost or difficulty constructing and maintaining these structures. Enter the fabric-covered structure. Think of Investors Field in Winnipeg, or any of the retractable and fabric domes on stadiums across North America. While some use metal as a covering, many use polymers or fiberglass, so that the feel of outdoors remains.

To fully enclose an outdoor rink would be sacrilege for many purists. Yet, without some sort of sheltering, community rinks are limited in many ways. Seasons tend to be shorter because the sun melts the ice early and autumn sun allows the ground to hold heat longer. A canopy, on the other hand, provides the shade needed to mitigate the sun’s heat. Snow days are a welcome relief for workers who get a day off when the weather is uncooperative. But open rinks become unusable as snowfall increases, and volunteer (or worse, paid) labour is called upon to clear the accumulations. Then there is rain. Climate change is hitting outdoor rinks hard, with rain occurring in every month of the year in much of Canada. Rain ruins rink ice. Sacrilege or not, the need to provide some shelter for rinks is obvious.

A covered rink can double as a skating rink or curling rink, as a recreational site or a place to hold regular games. However, cost is the ultimate deciding criterion.

Today’s tension-fabric structures are adaptable and flexible. Their inherent design means that they can be fitted and configured to any size, layout or location, without a substantial change in cost. Poly fabric buildings are lightweight, easy to install and, best of all, inexpensive. This opens up the opportunity for small communities to invest nominal amounts in a recreational facility that benefits everyone.

Fabric buildings can be constructed with fixed in place walls or with removable walls, similar to party tent structures. This means that the resistance by purists is overcome, since, in good weather, walls can be removed to allow for an open feel. The remaining canopy provides protection against the sun and snow, and even offers limited protection against wind – the evil partner of cold.

Interestingly, the winter shelter offered by fabric structures for outdoor rinks also extends the benefit into summer. The rink now can be used as an events venue, party venue, or even rented for private, revenue-generating functions. This means that fabric canopies can pay for themselves quickly.

An open canopy also circumnavigates the need for adherence to building codes that apply to permanent structures. This, in turn, reduces construction costs and ongoing costs.

Maintenance of fabric buildings is minimal, meaning that operating expenses are minimized relative to wood or metal coverings.  With fabric, light filters through, so there is little need for the daytime lighting that would be needed for wood or metal structures. At the same time, there is no bleeding of moisture in early spring days, such as experienced in metal buildings with bolt and nut extrusions in the roofline.  This reduces ice maintenance.

Local communities that want to keep their outdoor rinks, or that can not afford to enclose their inexpensive outdoor facility now can save money while installing a poly-fabric complete cover or canopy. Even individual families or small groups can afford to cover their own rink. With the lightweight nature of the structure and the ease of installation, even location is not fixed, since it is relatively easy to relocate moderate sized units. In fact, some can be constructed on caster wheels or rollers, making them truly portable.

Ideally, communities eyeing their future may consider building a fabric structure that can be adapted or expanded, or to which insulated walls and other features or amenities can be added.  This provides further cost benefit.

Covering an outdoor rink is far from the sacrilege that purists claim, when the options available in a tension fabric building are considered.

Metsl Versus Fabric Structures

While pressure washing a vehicle inside a Quonset, I noticed that moisture was dripping from the curved roof, yet none of the spray was reaching higher than a few feet above the truck. It was cool outside, and I was using warm water. The vapour was rising, condensing on the upper reaches of the steel ribbing and falling like rain.

That was not the problem that I saw, however. What I saw was that the condensation that remained on the bolts and nut ends was evaporating, and over only a few years of this type of incident reoccurring, rust was evident everywhere. Yes, galvanized metal is supposed to be rust resistant, and it largely is. However, at key stress points such as bolt holes, rust inevitably takes hold and soon those rust spots turn to holes and leakage occurs, exacerbating the problem. This metal building leaked everywhere.

Leakage is one of the problems common to older metal buildings. Cycles of heat and cold, sun and wind and differences between the internal and external conditions lead to warping of the metal so that rivets pop or moistures accumulations lead to rust penetration at key points.

Metal is a great conductor, too, not only of electricity, making steel and aluminum buildings risky for a handyman to wire on his own, but of heat and cold, making them quite uncomfortable in which to work during extremes of temperature.

Once wind gets hold of a loosened panel, it makes short work of the metal, stripping it from its moorings., One of the most common scenes in hurricane season is the flapping of aluminum panels on buildings, or sheets of the metal flying by like a kite in the air.

Metal is rigid. This limitation restricts the design of metal buildings and forces engineers to construct smaller spans than can be created with fabric buildings. The unwieldy configuration of metal buildings reduces options for expansion, development and usage of the interiors. Cuts and bends form stress points or weakened spots in the material, making them prone to breakdown.

Manufacturers of steel clad, steel roofed or aluminum buildings claim that their buildings have lifespans exceeding 50 years, yet simple observation of older steel buildings across the rural landscape shows that many of these supposedly durable buildings already are falling into disrepair, after as little as 20 years. Why? Simply put, manufacturer’s claims of longevity apply to the thickest gauge, most expensive products. These buildings may well be out of the economic reach of most consumers.

On the other hand, fabric buildings, like metal ones, come with a wide range of material options. The differences are many, but the two most salient  are initial cost and replacement cost. Fabric building skins can be replaced as needed, and very often repaired quickly and easily. Yet, even moderate- or budget-level fabric is designed to last twenty years or more. With almost no maintenance, these stretched fabric buildings last a similar length to steel buildings but do so at a fraction of the cost.

Trusses and base plates of fabric buildings generally are coated and designed to last virtually forever, making them less likely to age like many of the swayback and buckling metal building counterparts.

Because of the inherent tensile strength of fabric buildings, they resist wind, rain and snow load easily, deflecting the elements while metal build design encourages blunt resistance against the wind, with roof lines often allowing snow to accumulate and compress roof infrastructure.

Poly-fabric, unlike metal, is resistant to rot, corrosion and even the impact of chemicals and fuels. This makes these buildings much more suitable for use as machine shops, hazardous chemical storage buildings and other high-risk uses. While steel and aluminum served their purpose decades ago, the new fabric, poly-fabric or tension-fabric buildings would serve the majority of applications much better and much more economically, even as a place where I can wash my truck without carrying an umbrella to protect against the falling raindrops from roof rivets.

Rural Business Opportunities with Fabric Structures

Short summer seasons limit many of the recreation businesses in the northern areas of the US and Canada. Go-carting, mini-golf, waterslides and splash parks, along with dozens of other outdoor summer events cease in early fall and do not recommence until late spring. The primary reason is weather.

The entertainment businesses that attempt to defy this simple barrier to being open for longer durations experience prohibitive costs. Virtually the only waterslides that remain open are those located inside hotels. Mini-golf facilities close shop when the ground freezes. A few go-cart operations have found homes in old warehouses, but the facilities are pricey, taxes high and maintenance and insurance costs on the old buildings unreasonable.

Yet, fabric buildings offer a cost-effective alternative. With the ability to build clear spans exceeding three hundred feet and ceiling heights more than one-third of that size, almost any summer sport can be housed indoors and offer nearly year-round availability. A few driving ranges, opened more than two decades ago in fabric buildings, have found a niche and a profit path that seasonal operators would do almost anything to achieve.

Because of the design and materials used in tension fabric structures, almost all of the space becomes useable, while wood, concrete or steel buildings must incorporate buffers, design for support beams and posts that interrupt the flow of the building and consider the limitation of ceiling height in selecting a business in the buildings.

Batting cages, driving ranges, mini-golf, soccer and football and even full-fledged baseball operations easily can be held in a fabric building, extending seasons and revenue flow while incurring only modest operating and capital costs for infrastructure.

Small communities struggle to find a way to offer sporting venues and recreation opportunities for their residents in winter. Most frequently, they are limited to conventional winter sports. Yet, a small fabric building can house waterslides, splash parks and track and field facilities.

Go cart racing is simply the starting point for similar activities. Dirt bike tracks, mountain biking and so on fit well in the tension fabric structure.  Archery, short-range gun and target shooting and similar sports are also possible.

With the range of recreation businesses that can be housed in fabric and poly-fabric buildings, new doors are opened for would-be entrepreneurs, in rural towns across Canada and the USA, either operated in partnership with the community, in a private partnership relying on local investors or as a privately owned business.

  

 

     

Business Opportunities Using Fabric or Tarpaulin Buildings

Short summer seasons limit many of the recreation businesses in the northern areas of the US and Canada. Go-carting, mini-golf, waterslides and splash parks, along with dozens of other outdoor summer events cease in early fall and do not recommence until late spring. The primary reason is weather.

The entertainment businesses that attempt to defy this simple barrier to being open for longer durations experience prohibitive costs. Virtually the only waterslides that remain open are those located inside hotels. Mini-golf facilities close shop when the ground freezes. A few go-cart operations have found homes in old warehouses, but the facilities are pricey, taxes high and maintenance and insurance costs on the old buildings unreasonable.

Yet, fabric buildings offer a cost-effective alternative. With the ability to build clear spans exceeding three hundred feet and ceiling heights more than one-third of that size, almost any summer sport can be housed indoors and offer nearly year-round availability. A few driving ranges, opened more than two decades ago in fabric buildings, have found a niche and a profit path that seasonal operators would do almost anything to achieve.

Because of the design and materials used in tension fabric structures, almost all of the space becomes useable, while wood, concrete or steel buildings must incorporate buffers, design for support beams and posts that interrupt the flow of the building and consider the limitation of ceiling height in selecting a business in the buildings.

Batting cages, driving ranges, mini-golf, soccer and football and even full-fledged baseball operations easily can be held in a fabric building, extending seasons and revenue flow while incurring only modest operating and capital costs for infrastructure.

Small communities struggle to find a way to offer sporting venues and recreation opportunities for their residents in winter. Most frequently, they are limited to conventional winter sports. Yet, a small fabric building can house waterslides, splash parks and track and field facilities.

Go cart racing is simply the starting point for similar activities. Dirt bike tracks, mountain biking and so on fit well in the tension fabric structure.  Archery, short-range gun and target shooting and similar sports are also possible.

With the range of recreation businesses that can be housed in fabric and poly-fabric buildings, new doors are opened for would-be entrepreneurs, in rural towns across Canada and the USA, either operated in partnership with the community, in a private partnership relying on local investors or as a privately owned business.

  

 

Fabric Buildings A Great Opportunity For First Nations Communities

On a recent visit to a northern Manitoba First Nations community, I sat down with a few of the residents to discuss their housing issues.

It was early spring and the frost was just coming out of the ground. Like many northern communities, homes are built on a combination of rock and moss, none of which is level. In the spring, the moisture in the moss expands, pushing a corner of the foundation of the home upward. This causes the doors and even windows to shift, with broken windows, popped by this movement, a common sight. In the worst of winter, residents remove door knobs so that the shifting does not trap them inside or out of their homes when the lock striker plate and latch misalign. The local carpenters are kept busy replacing windows and adjusting door frames.

A part of the problem is the inability to bring up materials and complete the necessary quality work in the short summer season. Materials often can only arrive on winter roads. Tradesmen play “catch-up” on repairs while trying to build new housing on site throughout the community. Thus, the quality of workmanship suffers, making the housing crisis worse.

Yet, a seemingly simple solution has been overlooked by the band and by INAC: build several houses at once in an enclosed environment, year round. One of the reasons that bands have not embraced this idea is that authorities are still thinking 1970s construction. In their view, building a giant wood or steel warehouse in which to build a handful of houses would be counterproductive. They have failed to examine the benefits of using a fabric structure in which to build the homes.

Standard wood or steel buildings are heavy and the large spans of open interior space would be interrupted or segmented by support beams and posts. This would make building and removing the completed houses from the warehouse an almost impossible task.

Fabric, or tension-fabric buildings can be constructed with huge clear spans, sometimes exceeding three hundred feet. Being lightweight, they require much less support than conventional buildings. Because they rely on tension of the fabric for strength, they offer a more sturdy design in a harsh, windy environment. Also because of their design the ends can open almost fully, allowing completed houses and bulky materials to be moved in an out at will.

The poly-fabric is extremely durable, performing very well in extreme cold and extreme heat. While steel conducts heat and cold and wood requires dense insulation, pvc fabric structures help to keep the temperature regulated. At the same time, the open design allows for free air flow, significantly lowering heating costs.

Polymer fabric buildings also require less lighting, with good translucence. If insulation is desired, insulated interior tarps or suspended insulation is an easy option.

One of the great advantages of fabric buildings in the northern setting is the lower costs of transportation. Less material and less weight of the pieces reduces weight by up to 80%. In some cases, many of the parts can be flown in economically. Once on site, assembly of poly-fabric buildings occurs in a fraction of the time required for conventional buildings. Even anchoring is easy, either by anchoring trusses and plates into rock or designing a floating footing system.

Fisher First Nations, in Manitoba’s Interlake, builds up to four homes at a time in their warehouse building. This idea would work just as well in any remote community, allowing homes to be built throughout the entire year, at lower costs per unit than currently occurs and at a higher standard of workmanship (because supervisors would be on site at all times). A corollary to building RTM homes inside a fabric building is that local workers could be employed year round, while residents benefit from improved housing.

Weight, cost, quality, ease or flexibility each is a great reason to look more closely at using fabric structures in remote communities to benefit residents. Tension-fabric buildings offer First Nations people a great chance to help themselves to lower cost, better quality facilities while creating new employment and income opportunities in regions where jobs are scarce, costs are high and quality suffers.

 

Uses for Fabric Buildings

When the photocopier emerged on the office scene decades ago to replace Gestetner and carbon copies, most people were skeptical of its value or the likelihood that offices would find a need for multiple copies. Instead of failing miserably as predicted, it opened up other industries and technologies, including fax, print advertising and others. This, in turn, enabled the growth of other businesses. Think of the ideas and inventions that the computer has spawned. 

Similarly, the emergence of fabric buildings (often called “tarpaulin buildings”) has enabled the refinement and development of many more business and personal applications that were not feasible a decade or two ago.

In rural communities, retention of the population base has become the primary focus, with a steady outflow of residents moving to bigger centres where there are better facilities of all sorts. Combined with a lack of money to stimulate infrastructure development or business support, this lack of services has become critical to community survival or failure. Fabric buildings may offer an answer to cost effective development of local resources. One of the major costs, for example, involved in swimming pool construction is the enclosure. With the very short outdoor season in Western Canada, a three-month season to repay the cost of a swimming pool is far from sufficient. However, a fabric canopy could extend the season by three more months, making capital costs more affordable. Along Lake Winnipeg, a local community spent several years considering the viability of an amphitheater for its summer patrons, opting eventually for a simple stage. Had the choice of a fabric canopy been considered, cost would have been significantly reduced and the project proceeded more quickly. While many rural communities have developed golf courses, opting for a fabric pavilion would have expanded their reach and ability to serve larger groups than the small clubhouses that they build can do.

Whether urban or rural, open-air restaurants are popular eateries and the fabric building is the perfect answer to this venue design. They can be seasonal, extended season operations or even designed as year-round facilities. In like manner, rural and urban centres may want to look at the low cost versus the benefit of providing baseball diamond dugout canopies or umbrella sunshades for the spectators. In the country, rodeo stands and staging areas could use such low-cost coverings.

Many  cities now employ transit stop canopy shelters made of fabric. Apartment complexes and some hotels have maximized usable space by installing rooftop canopies while others have enclosed courtyards in fabric domes. Think of the many outdated seniors homes. Their tiny suites are far from inviting. Expanded leisure space can be quickly created by enclosing the unused greenspace that many have. Auto dealers know that shoppers prefer to examine their potential purchase in the comfort of an enclosed showroom. A simple shade saddle, inflatable dome or tension-fabric building costs a fraction of a traditional showroom, provides better lighting and easier access and egress for vehicles. This, in turn, increases sales potential.

While the evolution of fabric structures (or “tarp structures”) may not equal the impact of the computer or photocopier, it is a game-changer, and allows for creative communities, organizations, businesses and individuals to capitalize on the opportunities created.

 

Fabric Materials for Tarpaulin Buildings

When the photocopier emerged on the office scene decades ago to replace Gestetner and carbon copies, most people were skeptical of its value or the likelihood that offices would find a need for multiple copies. Instead of failing miserably as predicted, it opened up other industries and technologies, including fax, print advertising and others. This, in turn, enabled the growth of other businesses. Think of the ideas and inventions that the computer has spawned. 

Similarly, the emergence of fabric buildings (often called “tarpaulin buildings”) has enabled the refinement and development of many more business and personal applications that were not feasible a decade or two ago.

In rural communities, retention of the population base has become the primary focus, with a steady outflow of residents moving to bigger centres where there are better facilities of all sorts. Combined with a lack of money to stimulate infrastructure development or business support, this lack of services has become critical to community survival or failure. Fabric buildings may offer an answer to cost effective development of local resources. One of the major costs, for example, involved in swimming pool construction is the enclosure. With the very short outdoor season in Western Canada, a three-month season to repay the cost of a swimming pool is far from sufficient. However, a fabric canopy could extend the season by three more months, making capital costs more affordable. Along Lake Winnipeg, a local community spent several years considering the viability of an amphitheater for its summer patrons, opting eventually for a simple stage. Had the choice of a fabric canopy been considered, cost would have been significantly reduced and the project proceeded more quickly. While many rural communities have developed golf courses, opting for a fabric pavilion would have expanded their reach and ability to serve larger groups than the small clubhouses that they build can do.

Whether urban or rural, open-air restaurants are popular eateries and the fabric building is the perfect answer to this venue design. They can be seasonal, extended season operations or even designed as year-round facilities. In like manner, rural and urban centres may want to look at the low cost versus the benefit of providing baseball diamond dugout canopies or umbrella sunshades for the spectators. In the country, rodeo stands and staging areas could use such low-cost coverings.

Many  cities now employ transit stop canopy shelters made of fabric. Apartment complexes and some hotels have maximized usable space by installing rooftop canopies while others have enclosed courtyards in fabric domes. Think of the many outdated seniors homes. Their tiny suites are far from inviting. Expanded leisure space can be quickly created by enclosing the unused greenspace that many have. Auto dealers know that shoppers prefer to examine their potential purchase in the comfort of an enclosed showroom. A simple shade saddle, inflatable dome or tension-fabric building costs a fraction of a traditional showroom, provides better lighting and easier access and egress for vehicles. This, in turn, increases sales potential.

While the evolution of fabric structures (or “tarp structures”) may not equal the impact of the computer or photocopier, it is a game-changer, and allows for creative communities, organizations, businesses and individuals to capitalize on the opportunities created.

 

Genghis Kan Would Have Been Proud

A quick look at today’s polymerfabric buildings – from air-reinforced inflated recreation centres to monstrous stretched canopies covering stadiums – tells us that this is new, innovative technology that only is possible because of recent inventions in specialty fabrics. “Space-age,” we think. Wrong. Tension-fabric buildings actually pre-date the iron age. It is only the substantial engineering advances that are modern. The idea is ancient, proven and reliable. Oddly, it is reliability that most often comes into question when we look at and consider buying our own fabric-covered structures.

Think of the yurt, or ger, that has found a huge following in North American parks and campgrounds over the past three decades. Many of us see it in connection with the Mongols of Genghis Khan, from 1162. Yet, gers were common around the Black Sea around 600 BC and earlier, withstanding extremes of cold and wind without failing. These were the original, true stretched-skin tension buildings, with furs or felt wrapped tightly around a frame of branches. Their design called for a minimum of material while offering great strength and durability. The North American First Nations teepees are excellent examples of tension-fabric structures, and could withstand extreme environmental conditions while being sufficiently versatile to allow for frequent dismantling and re-erection over numerous years.

The doors that opened for modern tension-fabric buildings came during World War II, with the introduction of quanset steel or aluminum buildings used as utility, storage or housing buildings. Shortly afterward, advances in use of natural gas, or off-products from the petroleum industry, along with development of plastisizers, enabled the use of PVC in such applications.

Even the common, inobtrusive tent is a form of tension-fabric building with limited applications.

Because of the supposed novelty of polymer-fabric buildings, many jurisdictions only reluctantly embraced the qualities and advantages of these creations. They have proven to be popular farm buildings, primarily because the building codes for farm building is more relaxed than for urban housing and commercial buildings. Yet, these fabric structures have received exceptional scrutiny by engineers, and have been proven in some of the most advanced and unique architecture around the world.

East Street Project at Westfield Shopping Centre (London, UK),  Grand Pavilion (Melbourne, Au) and the Santa Fe Opera House (USA) are just a few examples. The Qatar inflatable fabric dome is a great example of a habitable tension-fabric structure, as is the Vectorfields Frank Kim residence. These are more artworks than traditional building, however.

It is in the huge gap between these true works of art and the basic Quonset in which the most efficient and practical applications of polymer-fabric buildings occur. Airport hangars, storage buildings for large equipment and supplies, temporary bulk housing and even machine or workshops all become more cost-efficient when  fabric buildings are involved.

In a strange way, tensioned fabric buildings have evolved in a circular manner, originating with available raw materials such as skins and poles, through free-standing polymer structures relying entirely on internal tension to allow for artistic expression, to minimalist designs that offer greater strength, durability, weather and chemical resistance and lower cost than conventional wood, steel or concrete buildings. These new, simple yet solid designs reflect and integrate more of the basic principles of their ancestors –yurts and teepees – than the modernistic creations that immediately preceded them. Low cost now becomes one of their key advantages, while also allowing for installation in almost any extreme of environment on earth, and in harsh conditions where chemicals, weathering and structural stress weaken other buildings much more rapidly than the polymer-fabric designs.

However, unlike their Mongol ancestors, these new buildings are virtually unlimited in size, and fit almost any need. With proper engineering oversight, fewer and fewer jurisdictions impose onerous restrictions on their installation, since, unlike temporary garages, party tents or other budget- and low-quality products, a decent polymer-fabric tension structure often exceeds standards of any comparable house or commercial building. They are a far cry from the old canvas over pole army camp building, and now can be found on even the most sophisticated and technologically advanced armed forces base – thus proving that they are recognized as a high-quality, high-reliability structure. Much like the old Genghis Khan yurt.