Fake Turf

Psycho Sonny · 13 Jul 2018 at 01:20

Spook187 said:
Fake turf is hideous, strange people indeed use it.

Grass is hideous. Patchy, in areas it won't grow at all. Full of weeds.

There is a reason why people are switching

Jez · 13 Jul 2018 at 08:56

Psycho Sonny said:
I take it you don't play football?

All 5 a side pitches are astro turf.

They get more abuse in a month than a garden would get in 10 years. They all dont have issues

Haha, no i certainly don't play football

I'd assume that those professional type AstroTurf pitches are of a much higher quality than some self rolled fake turf for a garden, though. They are probably on a bespoke surface and even probably stuck with adhesive to that.

I like to think it would be OK, but it is worth trying to cover all bases

Yes indeed the reason to think of switching is as you say, real grass is very patchy in different areas due to constant shade or constant light, full of weeds, covered in moss, wont grow anywhere near loads of our trees (as they suck all the water) so we have big areas which are just mud, etc.

maj · 13 Jul 2018 at 09:21

Spook187 said:
Fake turf is hideous, strange people indeed use it.

Hay fever. North facing garden that hardly gets any sun. Low maintenance. There's 3 reasons we put fake grass in and it suits our needs perfectly. Hope that helps.

Psycho Sonny · 13 Jul 2018 at 09:24

Jez said:
Haha, no i certainly don't play football I'd assume that those professional type AstroTurf pitches are of a much higher quality than some self rolled fake turf for a garden, though. They are probably on a bespoke surface and even probably stuck with adhesive to that.

I like to think it would be OK, but it is worth trying to cover all bases Yes indeed the reason to think of switching is as you say, real grass is very patchy in different areas due to constant shade or constant light, full of weeds, covered in moss, wont grow anywhere near loads of our trees (as they suck all the water) so we have big areas which are just mud, etc.

astro turf has been around in the 5 a side game for like 30 years. a lot of progress has been made in that time.

so long as you get decent stuff for the house you will be fine. as for the seams. there is a roll of special paper you put down. you then apply adhesive to the paper then put the 2 parts that join down. this ensures they won't overlap or seperate in future.

just make sure whatever you buy is decent. that doesn't mean the most expensive. shop around and you can find stuff which is decent for a reasonable price.

i remember buying and using turf 20 years ago. it's changed so much since then. where you now get more than 1 different type of plastic. you get different colours now too. different lengths. some stuff from a distance even looks real.

i have the issue where it won't grow at all in 1 part of the garden. it's just all mud. the other areas is all patchy. i managed to ged rid of the moss by raking it all up.

if you have trees then forget having grass.

Jez · 13 Jul 2018 at 09:37

Yep, we have trees literally all around the garden, approx 30 of them. They suck all of the water and grass wont grow within about 2m of any of their trunks. Annoying and means the kids play in the mud half of the time as they like playing around the trees!

Martynt74 · 13 Jul 2018 at 09:47

A mates just put some down himself and used 20mm underlay. It feels like a mattress to walk on. It's lovely!

ANDARIAL · 13 Jul 2018 at 15:30

Remember! Green side UP

Fitted an area yesterday as it happens,outside of ex bosses caravan
Damn a roll is heavy,2 of us could barely lift it out of the van

Niled this down with 8" spikes/nails around perimeter and screws and plug/washers on one side that had concrete block edging
Oh and the 2 tone looks so real,like it has dead grass in between the live.Well impressed

roccles · 13 Jul 2018 at 17:54

I recently fenced off an area of my garden for the kids to play in and decided to go with artifical turf so they could use it all year round and I didnt have to keep moving every thing out when mowing. Its great for them but not sure I would want my whole garden done.

I rented a turf cutter and a whacker plate.

The process I went though was remove turf, lay weed membrame, cover this with Type 1 aggregate (approx 5 ton), whacked this, followed by a layer of sharp sand (approx 3 ton), whacked again, then another layer of weed membrame then finally layed the Grass on top.

Make sure you have the pile direction towards the house so it looks more realistic.

I bought the grass from Grass Direct as an 10.75M X 4M "offcut". I went for the widest they had so I would only need one join.

Lucerne - [10.75M X 4M] - £367.54

Its looks a little less fake now than in the photos since the kids hav been playing on it and I have given it a good brush.

j.col · 14 Jul 2018 at 22:49

Check your local builders merchants, I have laid about a dozen lawns now, and the Grono premier plus turf from Jewsons is very good, iirc its about £15psm (trade)
Also brushing in kiln dried sand helps weigh the turf down and it helps the 'nap' (pile direction).
It takes about 4kg of kiiln dried sand per M2 of turf.

http://www.grono.co.uk/artificial-grass-products/

enigma27 · 27 Jul 2018 at 17:05

I know some people have been asking so thought i would post up my garden that was finished today.

Apprx 58 sqM and total cost was 2825.. went for a 30mm two tone grass that has green and dead grass look.

angel102 · 27 Jul 2018 at 19:04

a1ex2001 said:
Fake turf serves a purpose clearly not for you, interestingly nobody has described ours as hideous most have said it's a great solution as they walk out in there socks! We basically had a choice of fake grass or slab the lot as our lawn simply didn't work for us and the fake crass has a much softer feel. We love it and so do the kids!

Not that we've had any lately, but how does it handle the rain?

a1ex2001 · 28 Jul 2018 at 06:37

We've only really had one decent downpour since it went down so early days but the rain disappears straight through the turf we had no puddles and it was dry in a few hours instead of being a big for a week.

angel102 said:
Not that we've had any lately, but how does it handle the rain?

bazzabear · 28 Jul 2018 at 08:14

Enigma - I've just had an artificial lawn fitted myself, and the guy gave a strong recommendation if I wanted to put a trampoline on it. He said to fit scaffolding boards under the legs to spread the weight. Basically, the constant bouncing in a small area will gradually displace the whacked sand, and you'll end up with little divots.

We had artificial because our garden didn't drain well - heavy clay. Allowed us to turn the lawn into a great big soakaway. We had a level of rain last night which would have left the patio flooded previously, but not so much as a puddle now.

Also have been able to fit a swingset without worrying about the grass all getting worn away.

Ours was Boundary from Expressgrass.com Reduced to £13.99 per square metre at the moment, looks great.

enigma27 · 30 Jul 2018 at 12:44

bazzabear said:
Enigma - I've just had an artificial lawn fitted myself, and the guy gave a strong recommendation if I wanted to put a trampoline on it. He said to fit scaffolding boards under the legs to spread the weight. Basically, the constant bouncing in a small area will gradually displace the whacked sand, and you'll end up with little divots.

We had artificial because our garden didn't drain well - heavy clay. Allowed us to turn the lawn into a great big soakaway. We had a level of rain last night which would have left the patio flooded previously, but not so much as a puddle now.

Also have been able to fit a swingset without worrying about the grass all getting worn away.

Ours was Boundary from Expressgrass.com Reduced to £13.99 per square metre at the moment, looks great.

Thanks for the advice. I actually have some spare down the side of the house so will cut them up at the weekend.

PikeyPriest · 30 Jul 2018 at 18:12

Looking to DIY a 4x5m area of lawn in September to artificial grass. I was looking to get a compactor plate thing and possibly a turf cutter. How much soil did you find you had to have removed? I’m going to raise the height of the lawn to match the patio so there is no step, so maybe removing an inch of so of soil. That would give me 2 inches for the aggregate, would that be enough? I find different websites give slightly different depths.