How to lay Artificial Grass
Hi, Andrew here from S&D Paving & Landscaping in Epsom in Surrey. This year, after being requested by many, I am going to be doing a series of ‘how to’ videos. So this video is about how to lay artificial grass.
Levelling out the Ground
In these circumstances, we’ll bring our digger in and we’ll completely excavate the lawn down to a correct level. We’ll then lay a geotextile membrane. So the geotextile membrane will be laid across the whole garden completely underneath the existing grass. Then from there we bring in our MOT hard standing which we lay across the top of the membrane.
Making the Ground Level
We compact and consolidate that to the correct levels and then our next step after that will be to lay our sharp sand or our 6 mil granodust. For a home that has pets we lay a 6 mil granodust across the complete area. This just stops the sand from absorbing the pet urine and it stops the smell coming back into the garden.
So in these circumstances we use a six mil granite dust and that allows for it to drain naturally down into the ground. So this is the first part, the first process of doing an artificial lawn.
Removing Old Turf
At this stage we strip the garden back using a mechanically propelled digger. As you can see, one of our guys is on the digger. First of all we scrape off the old turf or the old lawn. We then get that into a pile. We get a mechanically propelled dumper here and we remove that round to the front of the property and our grab truck comes and we take that to be recycled.
So that will be brought back to the yard, it will be put through a screener and we will recycle what we can out of that and the rest will be used for landfill. The soil that’s left will then come on a second visit once we’ve stripped the lawn and we’ll start stripping our soil down to the correct levels.
This soil can be 100 percent recycled, that’s why we take the old turf off the top. That can all be put through a screener once it’s dried and that can be reused and be brought back in to be, relayed on another garden or on this garden if we need some more back in for our final levels. So that’s stage one of laying an artificial lawn excavation.
First Layer of Granite Mix
Now we’ve got in our grit, what we’ve got here is granite. It’s 2 to 6 mil granite chippings. It’s got a little bit of sharp sand mixed through it. Not very much, a four to one mix. So four tonne of grit, one tonne of sharp. The sharp sand mixed through it gives it some better drainage, compaction and levelling is much easier.
So we’ve got all our granite down and it’s all been roughly leveled. We’ll obviously screed and do the final level and do a compaction. But this is the next procedure of how to fit, how to lay an artificial lawn. What we do after this is once we do a final level, we roll out a final roll.
Laying the Membrane
We do a double membrane, so we do one on the bottom, which is the existing garden, your soil. Then we do our MOT base. We do a granite grit. And our last piece to put on is putting on our membrane. So our geotextile membrane goes on, we cut it round to complete shape of the garden. Once we’ve done a final level and we roll out our artificial grass.
Rolling out the Grass
So, we’re now laying out the artificial grass. As you can see the guys are rolling the rolls out. We’ve already leveled, compacted, and screeded all the six to two mil granite dust. So as you can see it’s been all screeded and leveled.
Obviously we’ve got to give this one a final little level and screed. If you can notice from this side, you can see the shiny side. The shiny side always goes away from the property. If you turn the camera around, that’s the natural side.
Brush and Finish
Once it’s brushed and finished, you’ll see the difference in how that looks. So the guys have got to roll all the rolls out first to make sure we’ve got it all in the correct lines. Once that’s all laid out and rolled, then we’ll cut in all around the edges.
As you can see, Josh is on the brush and he is back brushing the artificial grass, which is the most important part for allowing the grass to stand up straight – otherwise it’ll go flat. On this job we’re using Envirofil, which is pet friendly. It’s also been recycled and it’s very eco friendly as well.
This is a pet bounce lawn from GRASSify. We used this because the customer has their dog and they don’t want the bad smells of the dog urine etc coming through the lawn after time. So by using this product that prevents that. There are materials within this product that breaks it all down.
So this is how we’re finishing off an artificial grass lawn.
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