Homeowner's Guide to Home Sandboxes

When properly maintained, a backyard sandbox can provide years of fun for your kids. Here's what to know about installing and maintaining a sandbox.

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If you&#;re a parent looking for ways to entice your little kids off the couch and out into the backyard, a sandbox may be just the thing.

Although sort of an old school idea, a simple sandbox helps toddlers develop motor skills by encouraging them to dig, pour, lift and measure. When kids play together in a sandbox, they learn about sharing. And it can be an environment in which their creativity runs wild, as they create farms, cities, racetracks or whatever they can imagine.

Let&#;s take a look at the different types of sandboxes and how to keep yours a clean and safe play area.

Sandbox Types

Backyard sandboxes can range from small, lightweight plastic play zones for toddlers to big areas where all the neighborhood kids can pile in and dig.

Plastic sandboxes. Well-suited for small backyards and patios, covered plastic sandboxes give kids a contained place to play, with no risk of splinters from wood frames. These are well-suited to toddlers, but probably too small for kids much older than five or six.

Sand and water tables. A novel idea for curious toddlers, plastic sand and water tables can be filled with &#; you guessed it &#; sand or water, to allow for sensory exploration. Some are either/or models, while others allow for simultaneous sand and water play areas.

Wooden sandboxes. The classic variety. A wooden sandbox, as the name implies, consists of a square or rectangular wooden frame that&#;s filled with sand. Some have built-in bottoms, while others require a tarp or other layer between the sand and your yard surface. There are many options for wooden sandboxes. Here a few we like:

In-ground sandboxes. A built-in backyard sandbox is a fun and easy DIY project you can complete in a day or two. By setting all or some of the box into the ground, you can create more of a seamless edge that&#;s less of a tripping hazard. It&#;s also a way to create a bigger sandbox area than a freestanding wood frame might allow for.

Sandbox Pros and Cons

There are plenty of good reasons to add a sandbox to your backyard, plus a few caveats to consider:

Pros:

• Provides hours of outdoor fun for your kids, right in your backyard;
• A safe place for kids to play with a low risk of injury;
• Inexpensive, either to purchase or as a DIY project.

Cons:

• Kids will outgrow them, after which they&#;ll have to be demolished and disposed of;
• Wood can rot and splinter (see safety, below);
• They require maintenance to keep sand clean and sanitary;
• Once installed, they are difficult to move.

How To Choose the Right Sandbox

The sandbox you choose will depend on several factors: How much space you have in your yard, the age of your kids, and what weather conditions are like where you live.

Toddlers will be content with a small plastic sandbox or a sand and water table. These are well-suited for small spaces, even ground-floor apartment patios. If you have older kids, or you want your backyard to be a neighborhood gathering spot, then a bigger sandbox is in order. If the sandbox will be out in direct sunlight and summer heat, then be sure to get one with a roof or sunshade.

Finally, wherever you live, plan on buying or building a sandbox with a cover, or buy a tarp or other covering to put over it when it&#;s not in use. More on that below.

Sandbox Costs and Installation

As backyard play equipment goes, sandboxes are one of the less expensive investments you can make. Plastic sandboxes start at about $70, and wooden sandboxes around $100. If you&#;re shopping for a wooden model, a budget of $120 to $160 will afford you a wide range of choices.

Sandboxes are easy to assemble and should not require calling in a pro. Before you install, prepare a level area in your yard that&#;s free of rocks, tree roots or other intrusions that could damage the sandbox bottom.

Once the box is put together, you&#;ll add the sand &#; the manufacturer&#;s instructions should indicate how many pounds or cubic feet of sand you need. Be sure to use specially-marked play sand that&#;s made for children&#;s sandboxes; paving and masonry sand is not suitable for sandboxes.

For more information, please visit sand moving equipment.

Prices for play sand range wildly. The cheapest we found it was $5.25 for a 50-pound bag from The Home Depot. Sustainably sourced or colored play sand can cost a lot more.

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Sandbox Safety and Maintenance

There&#;s one big red flag with kids&#; sandboxes. If the sand is not properly protected and maintained, it can become a petri dish for dangerous bacteria and parasites that can make your kids sick. The bacteria can come from dirty hands, feet and diapers, and the parasites from animals that decide the sand would make a good toilet. Mold and yeast can also form in moist sand.

To maintain a clean and healthy backyard sandbox, take the following steps:

• Keep a cover on when the sandbox is not in use.
• If the sand gets wet, let it dry out before you cover it.
• Have kids wash their hands and feet before and after playing in the sandbox. If weather permits, have them play barefoot.
• Have kids change clothes right after they come inside from playing in the sandbox.
• Check the sand frequently for debris. If you find evidence of animal feces or urine, at a minimum you need to scoop out all the sand around the tainted area. If the sandbox is used by toddlers who are likely to put their sandy hands in their mouths, then the safest course of action is to replace all the sand.
• Sanitize the sand. The experts at Playground Resource recommend treating sand periodically with a mixture of one part distilled white vinegar and one part water.
• Change the sand every year or two, or more frequently if yours and a lot of other kids use it all the time.
• For wooden sandboxes, check periodically for splinters and repair or replace sections as needed.

We recently discussed steps to localize your supply chain. One of those steps is buying hardy, well-made hand tools that will last decades and don&#;t require fuel.

The more you can take care of those tools on your own, the less you&#;ll be dependent on the external supply chain for replacements or repairs. That includes keeping them clean, sharp, and free of rust.

There&#;s an easy and cheap old-school way to handle cleaning, rust prevention, and even sharpening in one go. All you need is sand, oil, and a bucket. Here&#;s a before and after of old rusty tin snips after just one treatment:

More: Check out the best knife-sharpening and maintenance course on the internet

Summary:

• Use construction sand or a similarly coarse sand
• Traditionally, used motor oil is added to the sand, but mineral oil is safer and won&#;t go rancid
• Don&#;t add too much oil to the sand or it&#;ll get too thick
• It&#;s best to add sand and oil in layers so the oil is evenly incorporated
• Use a wire brush to scrub off excess dirt and then plunge the tool in the bucket until it&#;s clean and lightly oiled

I first read about the idea in Steve Solomon&#;s Gardening When It Counts, an essential book for any aspiring survival gardener, with a wealth of knowledge about choosing and maintaining garden tools:

In the old days, there was usually a wooden box on the floor of the garden shed filled with coarse sand. The sand was saturated with used crankcase oil. When the garden tools were put away for the day, their working ends were first wirebrushed clean and then stuck into that sand so they came out lightly coated with oil.

It&#;s a pretty simple concept. The abrasive sand scrapes the dirt and rust off the metal and the oil lightly coats the metal to prevent additional rust (similar to gun oil).

First, you need a container. The old-time method is a wooden box, but most people these days use five-gallon buckets, which are cheap, don&#;t take up too much space, and are large enough to accommodate most tool heads. However, wide tools like rakes can be a challenge. At some point I&#;d like to build a big sandbox to accommodate those large tools, but for now a bucket will suffice.

More: Never too many buckets: Ten uses for my favorite tool

Next, you need sand. Not just any sand will do. Play sand, like you&#;d put in a children&#;s sandbox, isn&#;t abrasive enough. You want a bag of construction sand, which you can pick up cheap at the local home construction store.

You can try harvesting free sand from a nearby body of water, but know you&#;ll need a lot of it.

Finally, you need oil, but what kind of oil? Old-timers used old motor oil. That might be fine, since you use a pretty small amount of oil, but used motor oil has carcinogens and other nasties I don&#;t particularly want in my mostly organic vegetable beds. Some use old cooking oil, which is also fine, but will go rancid and may smell. I opted for mineral oil, which is non-toxic and won&#;t go rancid, but is unfortunately not free.

Once you have your sand and oil, you need to mix it in the bucket. This can be trickier than you expect, since the sand is heavy, and the oil acts as a thickener. I screwed up my first batch by pouring entirely too much oil in and not mixing it well, which led to the bottom essentially turning into concrete.

Here&#;s the method I recommend:

1. Fill half of the five gallon bucket with sand.
2. Add about a cup of oil. Pour it out slowly and try to cover all the top surface of sand.
3. Give it about an hour or so to sink in.
4. Stir the bottom half with a heavy tool, like a digging bar or a heavy hoe.
5. Fill the second half with sand and add another cup of oil as before.
6. After an hour or so, stir up the mixture again.

When you plunge the tool into the sand, you&#;re looking for two things:

• There will be some resistance, but it shouldn&#;t take much effort to plunge the tool into the sand and move it around.
• When you pull the tool out, the submerged surface should have a light coat of oil.

If both are true, you&#;re done! If you don&#;t feel any oil on the tool, you can always mix in a little more. Remember: you can always add more oil but you can&#;t pour it back out.

Here&#;s how to use the bucket to clean tools:

1. When you&#;re done using the tool, spray or wipe off as much dirt and debris as possible before putting it in the bucket. No point making your job harder (and the bucket more contaminated) by leaving on the easy-to-remove stuff.
   
2. Use a wire brush to scrub off caked-on dirt.
   
3. Plunge the business end of the tool into the sand. You&#;ll probably have to step on shovels to get them as deep as possible. For hoes, use a chopping motion just as you would in the ground.
   
4. Move the tool up and down and back and forth in the sand.
5. Pull the tool out, beat it against the side of the bucket to knock off the sand.
6. Wipe off excess sand if you wish.

Here are a few important things to keep in mind:

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• This is a quick maintenance step. It&#;ll remove dirt and surface rust, but it&#;s not going to undo years of neglect.
• You can store garden tools in the bucket, business end down, to keep them free of rust.
• The sand can be a little messy, and it will scratch up glass, like screens or eyeglasses. Rinse it off with clean water instead of trying to rub or brush it off.
• If your tool has a smooth, shiny surface, the sand will scratch it up. I don&#;t put my hori-hori knife in it, for instance.
• If your tool has a painted surface, the sand will wear away the paint. This isn&#;t a big deal on a heavily used work surface, like a shovel blade, where the paint will get worn off anyway, but I wouldn&#;t plunge a scythe blade into it, since all but the cutting edge is protected by the finish.