had 10 rolls delivered today… for the most part pretty happy… stayed with it till about 9pm getting it very well watered…
but several rolls had big chunks missing… or some cut very thin… required alot of come’n back and patching… Is this the norm for rolls of sod?
I’ll need about 10 more rolls before i’m done… so just wonder’n do i mention it to the supplier… or just leave it be and consider it the norm?
looks nice… I’m sure it was cut less than 24hrs before i got it… only the outer exposed dirt part of the rolls were dried out… after a 40 mile truck ride…
just curious… first time use’n the rolls
p
Replies
Certainly you see such defects -- it's a "natural" product after all. But hard to say if you saw more than was to be expected -- maybe you did.
usually a small percentage...
BTW...
did you remember that the it was green side up???
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Now you get to wait for the raccoons. That's always a hoot.
k
the grass is natural, the machinery to harvest it isn't, nore is it normal to have rolls with missing chunks .. let the supplier know before ordering another batch
Only ten rolls instead of a full pallet suggests maybe you got the culls off somebody elses job
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
But did he pay full price or pony price. From my knowledge of him he didn't pay anywhere near retail.He is my hero.
the rolls are 4ft wide and like 100ft long.... rolled on a very thick 6" cardboard tube... you can stick one fork in it to move em... but my bobcat could scoot em but not really pick em up and carry em... but we rigged a large pipe and chain and were able to kinda pull and lift em with the bobcat to get them all rolled out... took about 2 hours to get 4000ft down... another hour trim'n and fill'n... then i stayed til dark water'n and admire'n...BTW I called 2 places for prices... the one i'd prefer to do business with was $200 higher (prefer because i grew up with the guy who owns it but i didn't give my name when check'n prices... I love deals but i never want anyone to think they have to give me one) anyway i went with the lower of the 2 prices... plus they could deliver a day sooner...I'm ok with what i got and the price i paid... I just didn't know what the "norm" was for 100ft 2000lb rolls of sodP
the rolls are 4ft wide and like 100ft long....
Holy Jolly Green Giant! That's a new development.
I see them all the time around here -- it's rare to see a regular "sod truck" anymore. They're interwrapped with a plastic mesh to hold things together -- it just gets buried under the sod.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
Interesting. I suppose it depends on the market. I've been in SoCal for a few years, with a large sod field, maybe forty acres, nearby. They still cut with the same old equipment. I imagine that's because most yards here are pretty small and labor is easy to find.
Yeah, labor's probably a big part of it. I'd guess that the big rolls use maybe 1/4 the labor on both ends.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
Here in SoCal, I've helped with several lawns on Habitat projects. Always came in 2-foot wide by maybe 8' pieces stacked on a pallet.BruceT
I was picturing the small rolls one man can carry
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
must be 20 sod farms in so. ri.... some are big operations.... some mom & pop...
but all the rolls are 3' x 18"
Mike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
When I worked at a landscaping nursery, we'd get several pallets stacked chest high with rolls of sod delivered early in the morning--6 or 7 a.m. Certainly cut withing 12 hours, I'd say. By noon, those rolls on the bottom had heated up due to the same process that makes a pile of compost get hot. If you didn't get the rolls off quickly, they would literally cook and the grass would be killed.
Many of the rolls were very thin. Imagine several hundred acres of grass growing in peat on a flat (flat as they can make it--now I suppose they use lasers and cut and fill machines) surface. Machine comes and saws off a continuous strip, like filleting a fish, or skinning a fish. Any dips or high spots the machine rides over causes the saw blade to go low or ride high, changing the depth of the cut. So, yeah, it is unavoidable using the machinery that exists. The strip is pulled from the cutter and every four feet or whatever it was, a shear comes down and then that chunk is rolled and stacked. Anyway, it's interesting to see how it's done.
I would mention the thin ones to the dealer--he might give you some extra or reduce the price--worth a try.
Remember to butt the joints tightly and scrunch the sod to sort of consolidate it, but never allow one piece to overlap another. And, green side up!
most of rhode island's potato fields became sod farms years agowhen i buy sod i go to the farm.... they cut and roll as i watchalmost never find any defectsMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
As a one time or first time customer buying a small quantity, it's likely that you got the best of the culls.
If you want to save some serious bucks on small amounts of sod, call the sod farm and ask about picking up culls, how much they'd charge. You can drive right out to where they're cutting and pick them up, pay at the office then take them home and piece them together.
A friend of mine whose shop is in the middle of a bunch of sod farms picked up culls every day after work when he was completing his new home. He'd spend a half hour before dinner, cutting them to fit and laying them.
Over a few months he laid about an acre and a half of sod, watering it from a pond he'd dug there.
He made a deal with the grower to take all the secondary culls for a small set price, cash every day.
It was an amazing lawn, sloping around the house and the pond, real country club appeal. Of course then he had to bribe one of his kids to mow it. :-)
It depends. I've had sod that was thin or holy. But this last batch was even all the way through. Better machines?
Will Rogers
Probably better prep of the soil.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
Back in the olden days rolled sod was the normal way to get it. I remember rolling sod in the yard of our (my parent's) new house in 1953 and again at another new house (mine) in 1971. There was significant money to be saved if you did it yourself.
These days it comes on a pallet, cut about 15x30 or so. Yes there are holes in the sod if it is Bahia, The Floratam is more like a rug. You can pick up a whole piece by one corner if you get a good grab on it, just don't grab a single runner. You might unravel the whole thing.
Edited 8/14/2009 1:13 pm ET by gfretwell