A professional artificial turf installation follows seven steps: tear out the old lawn, excavate 3-4 inches, build a compacted base of class II road base, lay a weed barrier, roll out and seam the turf, fasten the perimeter, and finish with 2-3 pounds of infill per square foot. A two-person crew handles a typical 500 square foot backyard in two to three days. That is the whole recipe, and none of it is complicated.
What separates a lawn that still looks tight in year twelve from one that looks like a rumpled bedsheet in year two is not the turf roll. It is the 90 percent of the job that gets buried. I have torn out plenty of failed installs, and almost every failure traces back to a shortcut in the base work below the grass. Here is each step in order, what it should look like when done right, and what goes wrong when a crew rushes it.
Step 1: Demolition and Excavation
The crew strips the existing sod, roots and all, then excavates 3-4 inches below the finished grade. On a typical 500 square foot yard that is roughly five to six cubic yards of dirt headed to the dump - one of the reasons a legitimate quote includes a haul-off line item. If your quote does not mention disposal, ask where the dirt is going.
Depth matters more than homeowners expect. Excavate only an inch or two and there is no room for a real base; the turf ends up sitting on native soil that swells when wet and shrinks when dry. Sprinkler heads in the footprint get capped at the lateral line, not just at the head, so a cracked riser cannot quietly saturate your base years later. Any capped lines should be pressure-checked before the base goes in.
Step 2: Building the Base
The excavated area gets filled with 3-4 inches of class II road base or a similar crushed aggregate with fines. The angular crushed rock locks together under compaction; the fines fill the voids so the surface can be graded smooth. Round pea gravel does not lock and has no place under turf.
The base is spread in lifts, lightly wetted, and graded with a 1-2 percent slope away from the house so rainwater and rinse water sheet toward a drain or planting bed. Grading is where a good installer earns the money. Every hump and dip in the base telegraphs straight through the turf - the grass hides nothing. In wet climates or over heavy clay, crews often add a layer of clean crushed drain rock under the road base so water has somewhere to go. Desert installs in markets like Phoenix can usually skip that layer because the native soil drains fast enough on its own.
Step 3: Compaction
This is the step that quietly decides whether your lawn survives. The base gets run with a plate compactor - multiple passes in perpendicular directions, with water added to help the fines consolidate - until it reaches roughly 90-95 percent compaction. Done right, you can walk across the base in work boots and leave no heel marks. It should feel like a sidewalk with a hint of give.
Skipped or rushed compaction is the number one failure I see on tear-outs. The symptoms show up within the first rainy season: mushy spots underfoot, birdbath puddles after a storm, wavy low channels where foot traffic settled the loose rock. There is no fixing it from above. The only repair is pulling up the turf, recompacting, and reinstalling - which is why a one-day quote on a full-size yard should make you nervous. Hand tampers in the corners and around sprinkler caps count too; those are exactly where lazy crews leave soft spots.
Step 4: Weed Barrier
A geotextile weed barrier goes over the compacted base, seams overlapped a few inches and pinned. It blocks weeds from rooting up through the system and adds a separation layer that keeps the base from migrating into the drainage holes of the turf backing.
Two caveats from the field. First, fabric does not stop Bermuda grass that was never killed during demo - aggressive runners will find the perimeter and the seams, which is why the excavation step matters. Second, in heavy-dig dog yards some installers run the fabric under the base instead, or skip it in favor of a deeper excavation, because a determined digger can bunch exposed fabric at the edges. A good installer will explain the choice rather than just skipping the layer to save a hundred bucks.
Step 5: Rolling Out and Seaming the Turf
Turf comes in 15 foot wide rolls and needs an hour or two unrolled in the sun to relax before cutting - polyethylene remembers being rolled up, and fighting the memory creates wrinkles. Every panel must run the same direction, because turf blades lean slightly one way from manufacturing. Reverse one panel and it will read as a different shade of green forever, no matter how well the seam is cut.
Seams are the craft test of this trade. The installer trims the factory edge off both panels, butts the blade rows to a consistent gap, then joins them from below with seam tape and adhesive or with galvanized seaming staples, depending on the system. A proper seam disappears; you find it with your fingers, not your eyes. A visible seam - a mohawk stripe of doubled blades or a part line of exposed backing - is the most common complaint on cheap installs, and it never improves with age. It is fair to ask any bidder how many seams your layout requires and to look at seam close-ups from their past work.
Step 6: Fastening and Trimming the Perimeter
The perimeter gets fastened with 5-6 inch non-galvanized nails or landscape staples every 4-6 inches along the edges, plus a wider grid pattern through the field on larger lawns. Edges are trimmed tight to hardscape with a fresh hook blade - dull blades chew the backing and leave ragged cuts you will see every day. Where the turf dies into planting beds, a bender board or composite edge gives the nails something to bite so the edge cannot curl. Curled corners are a dead giveaway of an unpinned edge and a tripping hazard once they start.
Step 7: Infill and Power Brooming
Infill is not optional, no matter what a discount bid implies. The crew broadcasts 2-3 pounds per square foot of silica sand, coated sand, zeolite, or a blend, working it down between the blades with a power broom in several passes. Infill ballasts the turf so it cannot shift or wrinkle in heat, protects the backing from UV, and props each blade upright so the lawn stands up instead of matting flat in the first play lane your kids wear in. The final power brooming stands every blade against its lean, and that is the moment the lawn suddenly looks real.
The Full Install at a Glance
| Step | What Happens | What Skipping It Costs You |
|---|---|---|
| Demo and excavation | Remove sod, dig 3-4 inches, cap irrigation | Weeds return, base sits on live soil |
| Base | 3-4 inches class II road base, graded 1-2 percent | Puddles, humps that telegraph through |
| Compaction | Plate compactor to 90-95 percent | Mushy spots, waves, full redo to fix |
| Weed barrier | Geotextile over base, overlapped and pinned | Weeds through seams and drain holes |
| Seaming | Panels aligned same direction, taped and glued | Visible stripes and gaps forever |
| Fastening | Nails every 4-6 inches at edges | Curling corners, shifting panels |
| Infill | 2-3 lbs/sq ft, power broomed in | Wrinkles, matting, early UV wear |
What This Costs and How Long It Takes
Expect two to three days for a typical 500 square foot yard: day one for demo and base, day two for compaction, turf, and seams, and a final stretch for infill and detail work. Installed pricing starts around $5 per square foot for economy turf, $8 for mid-grade, and $12 for premium product, with the base work baked into those numbers - you can see how your market compares in our turf cost index. A bid dramatically under those figures is almost always missing excavation depth, compaction, or infill, and now you know exactly which corner they plan to cut.
The material is the same in every truck; the crew is the variable. Compare a few local installers, ask each one about base depth, compaction, and seam count, and check their tear-out photos. Start with our directory of vetted turf companies - including busy markets like Dallas - and get two or three quotes on the same scope so the numbers actually mean something.