I have two sandboxes in my backyard, consistently in the shade, which I faithfully cover every night when the kids are done playing in them to avoid them filling with rain (or the stray cat using them as a litter box!). However, my kids must have gotten out there one morning last week and left them open, and it poured that day while we were out of town. I managed to scoop all of the water out of the sandboxes but am still left with mud. I have been keeping them open during these sunny, breezy days, but they are still VERY WET! Any ideas of how to "air out" the sand in those boxes without having to empty them out completely? Any help/ideas/suggestions would be appreciated!!!
If the sand has started to smell, I wonder if adding in some vinegar to your sandy soup might help, before draining. I used to do that with our sandbox. I don't know how to dry it any faster, unless you make a game of having your children build "sand mountain" on a tarp in the sun.
Are you turning the sand over? When ours gets wet, I go and 'rotate' it so flip out more wet as the top layer dries. We did also poke some holes in the bottom after a really bad rain. It works eventually... As ours is under a tree (a retired plastic pool) things grow, but nothing major and I just pull them out or the kids use them to decorate their creation.
We tried to air out our sandbox after a similar incident and unfortunately it didn't work. Little plants sprouted while we were airing out. We eventually had to give up and dump the sand and get fresh sand to fill it up. I figured sand is something like $2.00 a bag and loss of enjoyment for a two year old "costs" more than that.
I drilled holes in the bottom of my granddaughters sandbox so if something like this happened, the water could drain. I did find that sometimes insects (looked like some sort of beetle) crawled through the holes so if I were to do it again, I would glue a piece of screen (non-rusting) over the underside of each drain hole.
Try punching a few holes in the bottom with an ice pick or screwdriver. I had this happen a month ago. I just pushed the sand away so I could see the bottom and the water was just pooled up so I punch a few holes and it drained out right away.
Good Luck!
