Forever Lawns, and K9 Grass

My unpleasant experience with the installation of this product in my back yard for the dogs

“Ty Allen” refers to Mr. Ty Allen V.P. of Forever Lawns, Inc.

 Ty Allen promised to install the grass to the manufacture’s installation procedure (it’s printed in several places on both yours and the mfg’s web sites) and to run the roll the length of the yard for few if any patches. 

1. Before preparing the final estimate and contract Ty Allen visited the property, measured an additional section that I wanted done, answered some questions and made various statements as to the way the grass would be laid out and finished in a quality job. One of which was that the yard was so narrow there wouldn’t be much piecing of the turf as the roll is 15 feet wide - wide enough to cover the west side in one piece and the east side in only two.  I offered to help him re-measure the entire job because I didn’t guaranty my measurements were accurate.  He declined! Stating that they would be close enough. In fact there was one measurement missing on my drawing, and he didn’t ask me to provide it. Nor did he measure it himself when he were here.  Ty Allen later told me the job was larger than he had figured, mostly because he guessed at that missing measurement.

2. Before starting the job, we discussed (Ty Allen asked about) attaching the nailer board to the fences – Ty Allen was told that they could on the east and north side, but I preferred they use the rebar method on the west side as that fence did not belong to me.  Ty Allen agreed, but then never installed nailer board anywhere along any of the fence. I even provided a print out of the rebar method with a sketch of how I would like the grass to go a bit over it and under the fence.  Ty Allen agreed to both, but missed some areas and used spikes instead of nailer board all along all of the fencing.

3. When the fill was delivered, I questioned why it was so much like dirt and not crushed gravel (minus ¼ inch crushed gravel is specified in the instructions). I also told Ty Allen that I thought weeds would quickly develop and grow through the turf.  Ty Allen passed it off as better than gravel - it was crushed recycled concrete, and that it would drain better and nothing could grow in it.  In addition, it was not minus ¼ inch as required.  (Wrong – it doesn’t drain well and weeds are growing through the turf already.)

4. When they were not excavating down to the required 3 to 4 inches after removing the sod, I questioned that, and Ty Allen fluffed it off as not being necessary in Florida soil. There is nothing in the installation procedures that states Florida soil as an exception. I have puddles when it rains.

5. They were to remove all the rocks from inside the patio and stack them. I did most of that for them, but when I asked Ty Allen about that, he said there was no need to remove the remaining river rock. 1^st; I wanted the rock for use elsewhere, 2^nd; it isn’t ¼ minus crusher gravel, but Ty Allen used it as fill anyway.

6. I asked Ty Allen to raise the landscaping black trim to meet the required height so that the grass wasn’t above or below that trim.  I showed him where the lawn service had run it over so many times that they were much too low.  That trim was exposed and easily moved when the sod was removed.  They did not adjust any of that trim and ran filler into and mixed with all my landscaping mulch and if you notice in the photos, a good part of your filler was not minus ¼ inch.  In addition, unused liquid glue was dumped on top of my mulch in couple of places.

7. None of the fill was double rolled (compacted) with water as required in the instructions.  The surface under the turf is uneven and lumpy. (Easily seen in the photo of standing water.)

8. When I asked if they were going to clean up the mess of loose turf fibers, he got out a power broom and swept a small area towards the rear planter.  That’s the entire cleanup they did on the installed turf.

9. I asked Ty Allen what they were going to do about removing the filler stones from my planters, and he said there was nothing they would do.

10. When Ty Allen was selling the job, he bragged about the rolls of turf being 15 feet wide so there would be a minimum of seams because one piece could be run the whole length of each side of the back yard.  That didn’t happen either. There are many patches with 1 foot wide plastic sheet making it impossible to drain and flush out the dog urine entirely.  They did not run the roll the length of the yard. 

It wasn’t miscommunications – it was Ty Allen who refused to listen.  Ty Allen just went ahead and shortcut the entire job – failing to follow the manufacturer’s printed installation instructions as promised.  Any further discussion would have been confrontational.  Boy!, I can just imaging how bad the job would have been if our discussions had gotten that far.

Yet, all this I was willing to live with if they were telling me the truth, and did an acceptable job overall.  However, shortly after Ty Allen left I began noticing problems that soon proved Ty Allen lied and misrepresented your installation process, and flat out did such a lousy job that I would have constant problems.  Seems I was correct!

1. The west side (the smallest section) is made up of small pieces (9 of them) patched together. There are voids, some pieces cut too short and some mismatched. The seams are poorly put together and look awful!

2. Ty Allen seriously damaged my front and side lawn with your wheel barrow and foot traffic.  Ty Allen could have put down plywood sheets to protect my lawn.

3. The gravel Ty Allen left in my planters mixed in with the mulch requires a considerable manual labor to remove.

4. During the installation, it seems your people left scrap pieces under the turf in four (4) spots that I know of at this time.  That makes the grass lumpy where one can easily twist an ankle as it’s not easily visible. Those spots are dangerous!  One is at the end of the exit door concrete pad right in the line of foot traffic.

5. WEEDS: During our meeting at my home I told Ty Allen that: “the main reason we wanted to put in artificial turf is because we wanted to stop exposing our dogs to chemicals required with a natural grass lawn”. I asked Ty Allen about putting down garden fabric to prevent weeds from growing through the turf requiring me to use weed–killer chemicals.  Ty Allen explained to me there was no need for garden fabric to keep weeds from growing through the turf as that wouldn’t be a problem with the gravel base and again when I questioned Ty Allen about the fill, he told me that nothing would grow in the fill they were using. He told me I may experience some grass growth along the fence edge because of the grass next door - that would be it.  A few days after the first rain there are weeds growing through the turf in all areas, requiring daily use of chemicals.

6. With such sloppy work I expect other problems will develop.

 (Too many photos to post - if you want to see a photo, please email me.)

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