If you’ve got trouble with brown spots on your lawn for a long time, which you can hardly stand to watch, using fake grasses to bury your dead stretch of property would become ideal for almost all homeowners. Natural grass can charge you a high cost with lawn maintenance, chemicals, pesticides, water bills, as well as the cost of neatly trimming regularly. To solve these problems, many people are turning to artificial turf installation.
However, don’t ever think an artificial lawn can totally provide your lawn garden with zero maintenance! Although artificial turf can help improve dead patches in the green lawn, as well as reduce water usage and maintenance efforts in the short term, these fixes will not last forever. In long term, artificial lawns, which now cover more than a million-square-foot land in the States, cause more problems related to their long-term sustainability.
So, before installing artificial grass, you need to consider some important things about both pros and cons of artificial grass, which have been agreed upon by environmental scientists and landscape architects.
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BENEFITS OF ARTIFICIAL GRASS
A nice yard probably has the green value to make the house look nicer. Whether you use real grass or artificial grass as putting greens in your backyard, this large project will increase property value for most homeowners. And it’s the improvement of artificial grass technology that more and more property owners lean on installing artificial grass to cut the expense of taking care of your yard in the past decade.
New technologies have changed all old thoughts about synthetic turfs. They used to think about tacky plastic and false green surfaces whenever mentioning artificial lawns. Synthetic grass is now very lifelike to natural grass without consuming tons of water. There are several types of synthetic grass available, depending on the demand of each customer: artificial grass for landscapes, for dogs, football grass, or artificial turf for putting greens.
If you’ve already invested recurring expenses to grow a natural grass garden and rejuvenate barren lawn patches but there are no results, synthetic turf would be an ideal option for both business and property owners. Artificial turf doesn’t require tons of water, mowing, fertilizers, or pesticides with low maintenance. Moreover, during the rainy season, whether you believe it or not, you will not need to worry about muddy splashes or footprints over your lawn.
VALUE, COSTS, AND MAINTENANCE OF ARTIFICIAL TURF
Mostly, many people think that an artificial turf installation would essentially go with zero maintenance and cheap cost. The fact proved most of us wrong! On average, a synthetic turf yard can last a decade and cost thousands of dollars to install. In addition, an artificial lawn requires maintenance by reapplying infill material several times, which a regular grass garden doesn’t.
To clarify, you could expect to pay an average of from $12 to $14 per square foot. It means, for a 900-square-foot expanse of grass in Las Vegas, the total cost to install artificial grass could reach a high cost of over $10,000 – likely more than $1,000 a year over the expected lifespan of a synthetic grass yard. This cost results from the turf type itself, the layers of base material, and the delivery services to completely install and tamp down the soil.
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Compared to the cost of installing actual grass, the cost of artificial grass installation could be higher as much as even $8,000. But the cost to maintain the natural turf for a typical yard during its lifetime could be higher than synthetic turf. In contrast, you can imagine that when the synthetic turf lawns degrade after 10 years, they just become a scrap ready to be trucked to a landfill, expose a large dead patch and you’ll need new investment. Thinking about the outcome of a thriving ecosystem of actual grass: you must dedicate spending a large amount of time and money to maintaining the natural turf at the beginning but give you a long life of healthy lawn!
That’s why we don’t think artificial grass is a long-term investment, compared with other longer-lasting alternatives! But it’s worth investing in artificial grass installation in drought-prone regions.
Synthetic turf can’t make flattened sections bounce back to their original position when being affected by vehicles or other effects running across. Therefore, artificial turf installation requires mechanical impacts along with the infill to keep its shape upright and not wrinkled. And infill materials now have several types with different pros and cons, which need reapplying over and over the time to best resolve the lawn maintenance of synthetic grass.
Crumb Rubber
The first infill material for artificial turf is crumb rubber, which is priceable at about 60¢ per square foot. Many research has proved that crumb rubber is absolutely safe for kids to play on the artificial grass lawn. Rubber, which is made from recycled tires, will reduce your maintenance and resist mildew and mold, providing your house with a safe area. However, crumb rubber is the main factor in blocking runoff and contributes to the environment with microplastics.
Organic Infill
Organic infills are made from walnut shells or coconut husks, which break down much easier than any other substances related to synthetic grass. This infill material can help reduce the high temperature of lawn surfaces; however, could be carried away by runoff due to its lightweight.
Zeolite
This is a mixture of minerals including hydrated alumino-silicate of sodium, potassium, calcium, and barium.Zeolite provides an excellent ability for odor control. Moreover, zeolite also offers the ability for rapid drainage and cooling grass surfaces at a fast rate when compared with rubber or other infills.
ARTIFICIAL TURF PREVENTS WATER CONSERVATION
Although actual grass requires water to be able to survive and artificial turf doesn’t, artificial grass installation will create water conservation problems for most people. Plants and grasses even create water themselves in soil. When you have artificial turf installed instead of a living plant, the moisture of the soil is being taken away from the environment!
Rubber or other infill materials, which help artificial turf springy bounce, can impact the runoff. As we mentioned above, crumb rubber could be washed away in waterways and create microplastics there. Also, rubber (or plastic) can keep heat during the day and night, which will make artificial turf hotter than real grass due to the water runoff.
More seriously, artificial turf can prevent rain from returning to the soil to provide groundwater.
ARTIFICIAL GRASS IS NO LONG LAST GREENS
As we mentioned above, the average lifespan of artificial turf is about a decade – about 10 years. During this time, the artificial turf will not require lawn maintenance because synthetic turf doesn’t need raking to be shaped like other natural grasses. Therefore, your upfront investment will decrease over time.
But of course, the artificial turf will degrade! Some companies offer warranties for artificial turf installed, including several years of 100% coverage within 8 years. That’s why the right contractor will make your investment valuable!
Also, the artificial grass is not able to recycle. This creates a challenge for both you and the environment when throwing it away after degradation. Toxic chemicals could be found in synthetic grass and crumb rubber overtime of installation.
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ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF SYNTHETIC TURF
Synthetic turf has created some insoluble problems related to the concerns of many environmentalists. Artificial turf releasesmicroplastic threats, which leads to the massive disposal issues that many people have to deal with when installing artificial grass. Having the artificial turf installation also means that these non-recycled polymer materials will pile up in a landfill and deposit microplastics into the soil and waterway. If they aren’t solved, these microplastics will exist for a long time without being disintegrated.
Although the synthetic-grass industry has claimed that artificial grass is now produced by using renewable elements in the grass, this type of artificial grass is a small part. Most of them come from non-recyclable sources. Also, whether the artificial grass is burned by an accident or intention, it will release the toxic compounds into the atmosphere which will harm people’s health and their own.
You should know that natural grass doesn’t waste water by itself. This problem comes from the water use of people and the wrong irrigation system. When considering the benefits of both natural and synthetic grass to install, you should notice this point to take advantage of which one would be better in the long term.
GREEN ARBOR LANDSCAPING – PROVIDE YOU ALL SERVICES IN SEATTLE
Established in 1988, Green Arbor Landscaping offers a variety of stone landscaping services for all of your needs. The company has served customers throughout Seattle, Bothell, Issaquah, Renton, Maple Valley, Bellevue, and the surrounding communities. With our methods and similar technologies, which comply with the latest industry standards, we always focus on bringing a great experience to our clients and meeting their requests with great results and quality product of construction.
Why Choose Us
From the beginning, Green Arbor Landscaping is a full-service business, specializing in landscape design, installation, garden service, and ground maintenance. We have over 35 years of expertise in gardening and landscaping job, including planting, mowing, asphalt & paving, rock driveway, hardscape services or concrete services, and so on! Our team members are bonded, licensed, and insured to meet the highest quality for your lawn maintenance needs.
For us, communication is an important key to a successful relationship with customers. We always prioritize calling you instantly when you need consultation. Once we identify your needs, we want to bring the most professional finished job in a very timely manner.
What We Provide
Green Arbor Landscaping specializes in landscape design, construction, sprinkler service, and ground maintenance. We provide you with all solutions for landscape installation services under one roof. Not only artificial grass installation but we also offer services packages including yard clean up, landscaping hardscape construction, and maintenance.
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What Our Clients Talk about Our Landscape Services
Many clients have started with Green Arbor Landscaping from very early periods. Read our clients’ reviews to discover why they choose us for their landscaping projects:
Aravindhan Vadivel: “Green Arbor Landscaping & Maintenance finished our back yard work today. They trimmed trees and removed leaves and debris. Installed sod for new grass lawn as well. Excellent work and will hire them for any future home improvements”
Joyce Isah: “In 3 days they came in and leveled out my backyard. cleaned up all the old debris and brush, the yard was horrible uneven with a bad slope a (30* drop off in one corner). My yard is now perfectly loved the slop/ drop off is gone. have a nice new gravel border around my fences and house, 12 × 9 foot tall beautiful trees for privacy along the back, a nice new sod yard, and a fully automated watering system for everything, got 3 bids and Gropn Arho Landscaping & maintenance was way bellow the closest one and J the cost of the niches. I will use them again and recommend them to anyone”
Jack Bill: “We just had a small project wrap up with these guys and are over the moon at the results, We had a long drain put in which they did in record time. Today they leveled the lawn and sodded added bark to all the flower beds. Crew was super professional and came and asked questions whenever they needed to in order to make sure we were 100% happy. They did a walk through with us this afternoon and I have to say was so impressed. We will for sure be calling them next Spring to do part 2 of our outdoor upgrade”
To contact Green Arbor for a free quote estimate here is some information that you might need:
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Phone call: (206) 265-2940
