Seed is cheaper. That is the beginning and the end of the argument for seed, and it is a good argument.
Sod is worth the difference in specific situations, and we would rather tell you which ones than sell you a lawn you did not need.
When sod is worth it
- On a slope. Seed washes out. The first hard rain takes your investment down the hill, and around here there is always a hard rain.
- When the yard has to be used now. Kids and dogs do not wait a season for seed to knit.
- When you are selling. The front yard is the first thing a buyer sees, and sod gives you a finished lawn in a day.
- When the lawn is gone, not just thin. Bare ground with no root mass left is a sod situation.
When seed is the better spend
If your lawn is thin rather than gone, sod is an expensive answer to the wrong problem. Core aeration and overseeding will cost you far less and get you there.
Thin turf is usually a symptom, not the disease. The cause is normally compacted clay, poor grading, or shade. If we lay sod over a compaction problem, you will have an expensive lawn with the same problem underneath it, and it will thin out again.
What each costs
Sod installed runs about $1.50 to $2.00 per square foot, so roughly $1.70 for a typical job. Tearing out an existing lawn and regrading add to that.
Seed costs a fraction of that in materials. What it costs you is a season, and the risk that it does not take.
The part people skip
Sod is not carpet. It is a living thing that has to root into the ground below it, and that ground is heavy clay. If the soil underneath is compacted or badly graded, the roots will not go down and the sod will fail regardless of what you paid for it.
We strip, break up the compacted soil, bring in topsoil where it is needed, and grade so water runs away from the house. Then the sod goes down.
And then it is on you: water it twice a day for the first two weeks. Sod lives or dies in the first three weeks and watering is the part we cannot do for you.
See our sod page, our lawn care page, or call (724) 605-4822.