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Lawn renovation
Hi,
I have a back / side yard that is kind of bumpy, the back corner is high so the drainage isn't great there. I just "built" this yard last fall - brought in a ton of fill to level it off, a ton of loam and then put in a entire sprinkler system and seeded it.
I'm thinking of stripping back the topsoil (hire someone with a dozer, I have a fel to scoop and stockpile it), bringing in some clean fill and hiring an operator with a mini laser grader to regrade, put the loam back down and have the laser grader hit it once more.
Just wondering what others overall thoughts may be.
- How much more difficult this may be dealing with existing irrigation? I feel like I will have to do a lot of digging by hand around the lines to make sure they don't get damaged.
- Anyone worked with a mini laser grader before? I found a couple of companies in / around MA that seem legit, but I know it's still very much on the skill of the operator - what questions should I be asking when considering who to go with? I'm guessing it's good if they plan to grade in multiple directions for example.
My goal is to have a flat (slightly pitched away from the house) yard, very smooth, like an athletic field almost. Thus I will be relying on surface and internal drainage (i.e. from the loam), and no subsurface drainage. Any thoughts are welcome and appreciated. Thanks,
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Thank you for the follow up. I don't think there would be major rework for the irrigation - most of the sprinkler heads would be at approximately the same elevation as before, and they're all connected to the lines through a piece of flexible tubing, so unless I screw up and damage the lines somehow I think I'm good.
It was probably about 6 or 7 triaxle loads of loam I brought in, so it was a lot. I could remove the loam with the fel, it just seems the dozer is the much better tool for the job. It would be a challenge though to prevent the loam from mixing with the subsoil either way.
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I will be hand digging around the lines that run through the yard - most of the lines are on the perimeter anyway. I don't want to go higher in most spots, plus the top layer in the long-term is only as good as the subgrade below, so really this needs to be addressed first.
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Thank you for the follow up. Total land is 1/2 acre, so the back and side yards would account for about 0.6 acres give or take. It's about 60 - 90 feet wide in the back (narrows as it goes towards the back). Good point about the blade on a grader being in the middle of the machine and needing some extra room to go beyond the area being graded.
I'm figuring about a 2% grade sloped from left to right (or maybe a crown in the middle and 1% grade to either side). It would have been 1000x easier to do all this last summer before loam and irrigation went in, I rushed it no doubt about it. I would plan to reuse almost all the loam - the dozer I figured would be better than the fel to strip the soil (plus I would be hiring a more experienced operator than myself), and then as you said a road-grader type machine (but a mini version - I know a couple of local companies that have them equipped with a laser that do athletic fields, they only weigh about 3200 pounds, very slick machines) to grade it all out, the tractor with box blades are nice but up here in the north I don't know how prevalent they are.
I'd have a lot of hand digging to do around the irrigation lines to avoid damage, luckily most of the lines are on the perimeter and not in the middle of the yard.
I would think if the subgrade and final grades are on point that it should hold its form for a long time, assuming the water drains off to the side as intended.
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Yep, about all there is to it at this point. Thanks,
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