Sodding Cost?

[Daisalana 33]

I have never done this, and the companies around here are few & far between. No one answers phones, so just waiting for anyone to call me back.

I have 1 quote so far, and nothing to compare it to, so wondered if any of you have any idea if I'm getting hosed or not.

We are sodding our backyard with bermuda. It is currently overflowing with weeds & red clay.. and rocks.

They said it's 200 yards, $2.25 per yard + (Originally he said $350 prep work) but I got it down to $250 for prep work. Total to sod the 200 yards is $700.

That seem high or right, anyone?

[Pix 4]

Actually that seems pretty good. My dad priced getting his two lots sodded, and then walked away cause the price he was quoted. One lot is 1/2 acre, the other is 1/4 acre (it might be 1/2 not to sure) but he only wants the back and front sodded because he has the rest landscaped.

They wanted 1500 for both lots ... 3k total. He eventually did it all himself and it looks 10 times better then some of the homes in the area that got sodded by that one company.

[Wheetsin 714]

Depending on your area, the average for sodding with a low-end grass like fescue is $2 - $3 sq/ft installed. For a nicer grass or custom blend for your climate zone, probably $4 - $5. (Based on prices in my area)

[Pix 4]

Yeah what Wheet said, I forgot to mention that home for me is Alaska so the cost up there will be a bit more pricey then most areas.

[Daisalana 33]

I guess that price is good then, it's for Bermuda grass which is a higher end.

I finally got another quote, for $1,200.

The other option is doing it ourself, and despite how my mom says we should and it'd be 'easy', when I talk to DH about it.. who is anal rentetive, and insists we till the yard, dispose of every rock, etc.. it sounds like a nightmare and I don't feel like debating that we CAN do it half-ass. Bermuda supposedly grows like wildfire, my granny piece by piece sodded her backyard with it, said she never prepped the ground, just threw it on top of her current yard and watered it. But like I said, DH won't let me do it the easy way and I don't feel like fighting. I think we're just going to go with $700.

[Wheetsin 714]

Our lawn was sodded and I would do it with hydroseed (the green food/seed mixture they just spray on) if I could do it over again. It would be more expensive, but I'm sure very much worth it. One of our neighbors used zoysa, fast and cheap, and nice during its short season, but he has to stay on top of it to keep it where it belongs.

[Pix 4]

hehe That hydroseed stuff is top notch .. I use the cheap "patch" version for our dogs spots in the back yard .. works like a charm too ... (I spend way to much time in Lowes)

[Daisalana 33]

We were trying to save a couple bucks when we built the house. They sod (cost included) to the back of your house line. For some amount of money, they sod the whole thing. One of those live & learn things, we thought we'd save money.

It's all red clay, which is a major bitch if you know what I'm talking about. Bright red, staining dirt, that never 'dries', so if the dog (or your shoes) touch it, the white carpets are ruined (has happened plenty of times already). So we don't use our backyard AT ALL, it's fenced and I'd love for the dog to be out there sometime. We thought we could seed it and blah blah.. well actually, they seed/hayed it when we moved in. Didn't grow. 2 months later, we bought tons of seed and a seed layer thing, and nothing happened. So we realized we have to sod it, and here we are.

[Wheetsin 714]

Well, let me throw my 2 cents out there. We're clay, completely. Our builder actually scraped the top soil of all the platts before he began construction, and sold it off to topsoil providers, leaving us with literally 100% clay. As in, don't even try to plant anything once it's hot out, because the ground is *solid*.

Our sod was put down on this, and almost instantly had problems because clay does not retain the moisture well enough for sod. We had to leave our sprinklers on non-stop, watching most of it run down the gutter, because anything else and the clay leeched the moisture down and the top would be dry. Even then it dried up in several places. One of the places where it did the best we went to dig up 2 years later and found it just rolled right up. Yup, after 2 years it still hadn't been able to root, it was just living off surface moisture. Fortunately this was a shady area so it could do that.

Then, if anyone stepped on the clay, the sod was wrecked because the clay/foot sunk and tore/buried the sod.

I could go on and on.

We built our house about 10 years ago, I was working some stupid part-time job, and hubby was at his entry-level job. What we bought was all we could afford. We upgraded to the extent our pre-approval mortgage limit would allow, but we had NO money for upgrades outside of that. So anything other than the sod that came with our purchase price was out of the question. But I would go just about any route other than sod now.