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What goes under an artificial lawn
Rolling out an artificial lawn is the quick part. Whether it finishes flat is decided underneath: in the base, the edge and the final level. Here's what went under the lawn on our Takapuna deck job, in the order it went in.
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The order, at a glance
Base: GAP20, barrowed in and spread flat.
Edge: a timber border to work against.
Fines: a top-up layer, brought to the final level with a straight edge.
Compaction: the base screeded flat and compacted.
The lawn: rolled out in one go, fibres leaning towards where you look at it from, then cut to the deck and nailed to the border.
Sand: last, its weight holds the lawn down.
Takapuna: a lawn in the middle of a deck
The house had just been fully renovated, with a new outdoor louvre system, and the old synthetic lawn and a smaller Kwila deck no longer matched the layout. The new plan is a square main deck, a path along the house and a second deck at the end, 60 m² of Vitex in all, with 15 m² of lawn set in the middle. The deck around it is 140 × 19 premium Vitex on 100 × 50 H4 framing, bolted to the old concrete slab.
The base is GAP20, barrowed in and spread flat. A 100 × 50 H4 timber border gives the edge: something to work against, and something to fix the lawn to. The GAP20 was topped up with fines, brought to the final level with a straight edge, screeded flat and compacted. Then the roll went down in one go: Everlawn 30 mm from Urban Turf. The edge was cut to fit against the deck, nailed down to the timber border and pulled tight, and sand went on last: its weight holds the lawn down.
Kevin's reason for the care: the base is what the lawn sits on. Get it flat now and the lawn finishes flat.
The direction matters as much as the base. Artificial lawn fibres lean one way. Laid leaning towards where you look at it from, you see the texture and the colour; from the other side you see the backs of the fibres, and that reflection makes it look shiny. The same turf can look rich or plasticky depending on which way it goes down.
4 weeks on site
Herne Bay: turf on the lounge platform
At Herne Bay the lawn is part of a pool build. New retaining pushed back a strip of dead garden along the back of the yard, and the space it made became a lounge area beside a fibreglass plunge pool. We laid the turf ourselves: Urban Turf Bayside 25 mm. Everything on that site came in and out through a gap under 850 mm wide, including 14 bins of excavated soil, barrowed out.
10 weeks on site
What actually decides it
A flat base. The lawn sits on whatever is underneath it, and GAP20 spread flat is the start of that.
An edge to work against. At Takapuna a 100 × 50 H4 timber border, which also holds the lawn.
The final level. Fines on top, brought to level with a straight edge, then compacted.
The product. Everlawn 30 mm at Takapuna and Bayside 25 mm at Herne Bay, both from Urban Turf.
The direction. Fibres leaning towards where you look from, so you see colour and texture, not shine.
The fixing. At Takapuna, cut to the deck, nailed to the timber border and pulled tight, with sand on last to hold it down.
Where we fit
On both jobs here the lawn was one part of a bigger build, and we did the base and the laying ourselves. The rest of the Takapuna job, the deck, the reused Kwila and a driveway extension, is on the project page. If the ground is low and wet and grass keeps dying back, a lawn may not be the answer at all: see a courtyard instead of a lawn that never dries.