Garden - Turfing/Landscaping

kpk2000

£250 for:

Digging up old grass
Levelling soil (no new top soil needed)
Installing new turf

Approximately 6 x 6 metres in Birmingham.

Any thoughts?

glasgowdan

Cheap. They need to rotovate the old soil to break it up and aid drainage before properly levelling it all. Make sure they don't just skim it off and put the fresh turf on top of the compacted ground.

Turf will cost approx £100. The job would take one man a day. Rotovator hire can be £60, and disposal of the old turf should cost at least £50. So if they are doing the work properly, and legally, the job will cost them £210, leaving them with £40 gross for a day's work. I suspect they will NOT be rotovating the ground, will NOT be paying for legal waste disposal and will most definitely NOT lay the turf to a good standard which you can then enjoy in future.

broonbear

or...they could have a turf cutting machine, lift your old turf , roll it up and sell it on then use their own rotovater to level the soil then lay the new turf, quite an easy job if you've got the tools.

glasgowdan

Since when have landscapers sold on old turf? I have never heard of it in all my time in the trade and as part of a national network!

The DIY love your garden type programmes all have a major major flaw; they make homeowners think that landscaping works can be done for the price of the materials. It is complete nonsense and they are damaging the industry. What looks like a morning's work to create a £500 patio actually takes 6 men a morning over two days and costs £3k! The sooner they stop the rubbish programming and make something realistic the better.

I know this is not relevant to the original point, but I have answered that and moved on.

Nile

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere (please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com"]forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

wallbash

kpk2000 wrote: »

£250 for:

Digging up old grass
Levelling soil (no new top soil needed)
Installing new turf

Approximately 6 x 6 metres in Birmingham.

Any thoughts?

Wish I lived in Birmingham .
I had a new lawn this spring , my patch was a little bigger .
Lawn was killed , ground was renovated , a small amount of top soil, leveled . So the guy made already three appearances, over a number of weeks. Then arrived with an extra pair of hands to lay the turf.
Cost was over £600 ............ and because of the hose pipe ban :eek:
but then the constant rain for weeks :rotfl:
Lawn looks a million dollars.

Ps

(no new top soil needed)

Soil is that good ?????????

broonbear

turf can rejuvanate pretty quickly , having an area to lay out the cut turf to rejuvanate a little care and a month later it's ready to sell on , my mates being doing it for years and he's run off his feet with landscaping work, having an area to lay it out is the key though oh and he's never seen ground force

bobhawke

broonbear wrote: »

turf can rejuvanate pretty quickly , having an area to lay out the cut turf to rejuvanate a little care and a month later it's ready to sell on , my mates being doing it for years and he's run off his feet with landscaping work, having an area to lay it out is the key though oh and he's never seen ground force

So you need to go to the expense of having a turf cutter, the space to lay the turf out, the time to rejuvenate the lawn which will probably be in a bad state which is why it's getting replaced in the first place and the materials to rejuvenate it all to sell it on for £2 a square metre?

glasgowdan

broonbear wrote: »

turf can rejuvanate pretty quickly , having an area to lay out the cut turf to rejuvanate a little care and a month later it's ready to sell on , my mates being doing it for years and he's run off his feet with landscaping work, having an area to lay it out is the key though oh and he's never seen ground force

Your mate doesn't make much money does he? He cuts turf, treats weeds and moss and I assume feeds it, then sells it for less (I assume) than rolawn etc?