Category: Skin Care Tips

  • Reduce the Cost of Lawn Care with Artificial Grass


    You can save save money on water bills by opting for artificial grass for your lawn. Unlike natural lawns, synthetic grass doesn’t require constant watering to maintain its green appearance. It only requires an occasional hosing once every one to three months. If you let your pets go to the bathroom on your artificial lawn, you’ll have to hose it off more regularly.

    Beyond saving money, you also can worry less about the variability and uncertainty that comes with larger water bills.

    Properly installed artificial grass can last 10 to 20 years, depending on the quality.

    Compare that to how much you’ll spend on 10 to 20 years of watering your lawn.

    If price is still an issue, you can always opt for used artificial grass that costs 50%-75% less than new artificial turf. If you are an experienced DIYer, you can save even more by installing the artificial turf yourself.

  • To get annual costs, multiply the water bill by twelve.

    The cost of utilities, which includes water bills, can vary significantly by state.

    In 2019, an average family of four in the United States used about 100 gallons of water daily and paid an average of $72.93 for their monthly water bill.

    According to data collected by the World Population Review, the states with the lowest average water costs are Florida, where the average cost of a water bill is $6, followed by Wisconsin and Vermont, with average water costs of $18.

    On the other hand, the ten states with the most expensive average water bills are: 

    West Virginia at $91
    California at $77
    Oregon at $76
    Washington at $75 
    New Jersey at $72
    Connecticut at $69
    Alaska at $68
    Arizona at $64
    Hawaii at $64
    Wyoming at $53.
    Note that this is per month. To get annual costs, multiply the water bill by twelve. For example, the average water bill in West Virginia costs $1,092 each year.

    According to a study conducted by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, keeping the front lawn grass green and healthy can consume up to 75% of a household’s water usage.

    That means that watering your lawn can cost up to $819 per year.

    Over five years, the cost of watering your lawn can reach as high as $4,095.

  • What can increase your water bill above the average?

    Type of Grass
    How the type of grass in your lawn affects your water billTwo types of grass are commonly used for residential lawns – Cool Season grasses and Warm Season grasses. Cool Season grasses can withstand colder temperatures and will go dormant in hot, dry weather. Examples of this type of grass include Ryegrass, Fine and Tall Fescue, Creeping Bentgrass, and Kentucky Bluegrass. 

    On the other hand, Warm Season grasses thrive in warmer climates, such as the southern regions of the U.S. They experience the most growth during the warmest part of the year. These types of turfgrass often require less water than Cool Season grasses. Examples include Bermuda grass, Zoysia grass, St. Augustine grass, Bahia grass, Buffalo grass, and Centipede grass. 

  • How to Remove Infill With A Forklift

    How to Remove with a Truck
    You can easily remove infill by tying one end of a rope to the edge of your roll and the other to a car or truck. Drive slowly forward until your turf is unrolled and the infill falls out, and then shake out the remaining infill.

    How to Remove Infill With A Forklift
    If you have access to a forklift, you can use it to lift a section of your turf roll about four feet off the ground and then hit it with a broom to shake the infill out. You would then repeat this process for the entire length of the roll.

    Note: This process is only recommended if you’re skilled in the operation of a forklift. Do not attempt if you are not able to comfortably operate a forklift.

    For more detailed instructions on DIY Extraction, check out this article!

  • Types of Repurposed Turf

    Extracted Turf
    Like most repurposed turf, extracted turf is sourced from local sports fields. Unlike infilled turf, extracted turf has had the infill professionally removed for a lighter, easier to install product.

    Without infill turf is only about half a pound per square foot, making it easier to work with. However, infill is absolutely necessary to the look, performance, and life of your turf. So if you do purchase extracted turf, you’ll still need to buy infill and add it to your turf

    Because extracted turf is infill-free, you have the option to buy a higher quality infill than the sand and crumb rubber commonly found in infilled sports turf. High quality infills like ZeoFill can keep your lawn up to 20 °F cooler and also prevent the growth of harmful microbes.

    Infill
    Infilled turf comes with infill already in it. It’s less expensive than extracted turf and also saves you the cost of purchasing infill. However, infill adds A LOT of weight to the product, which can make transportation and installation more difficult.

    Limiting factors for infilled turf include manpower, access to your project site, and your ability to transport heavy loads.

    Lucky for you, there are more than a couple ways to remove infill from turf yourself! These DIY extraction methods help you quickly and effectively remove the infill:

  • It Does Not Require Maintenance

    Artificial grass does not require as much upkeep as genuine grass, but that does not imply it is without maintenance. To keep it in good shape, you still need to do some sweeping and brushing. This regular maintenance will not only increase the life of the grass but will also keep it healthy, fresh, and aesthetically pleasing for a longer period of time. So, do not feel that artificial grass will have zero maintenance responsibilities.

  • Artificial Grass is Expensive

    One common misconception about synthetic yards is that it is prohibitively costly. However, an artificial lawn may be extremely cost-effective in the long run, even costing less than natural grass.

    When you factor in the cost of lawnmowers, grass feed, fertilizers, pesticides, hoses, water usage, strimmers, and re-turfing required to keep a real lawn looking good, artificial grass is far less expensive than real grass over its entire lifespan because it does not require any of the above to keep it looking good.

    So, while artificial grass is more expensive to install, the savings in time, effort, and money spent on upkeep might save you several thousand bucks in the long term, indicating that an artificial lawn can be more cost-effective than a genuine lawn.

  • What’s the best thing about putting your tent on the artificial grass

    Eventually even the toughest kids wind down, and camp-out style sleep overs call for tents. You can certainly pitch tents on your artificial lawn, but don’t use traditional stakes. You can anchor the corners with bricks or heavy rocks, but unless it’s windy the tents will stay put on their own – certainly once the kids are snoozing inside.

    What’s the best thing about putting your tent on the artificial grass? Comfort like you’d never get in the rough. Instead of rocky, uneven ground no air mattress can fix, your kids will have the same soft, even surface under their beds as they have underfoot when playing on the lawn. (And, parents, if sleeping kids make impressions on the grass overnight, you can simply get out a stiff bristle brush and re-fluff the grass.)

    Of course, you could skip the tents and hold your sleep over under the stars. See who can identify the most constellations – or any constellations. If it sprinkles, your campers can always bring their sleeping bags into the living room.

  • Why are moles and gophers so destructive?


    They don’t set out to ruin your yard, they are merely looking for food – mostly in the form of roots and small plants. So they burrow along under the surface where the soil is richest and most likely to hold tasty goodies, munching as they go. Unfortunately, their quest for food causes holes and mounds that are ugly and can easily trip you up.

    And all that tunneling underground causes the soil surface to collapse, leaving you sinkholes, too. And those moles and gopher are motivated! A single gopher can create as many as 300 holes a year and move literally tons of soil. No wonder your lawn looks so awful and you feel so defeated.

    Artificial turf is an ideal solution
    As much as we hate the damage moles and gophers can create, most of us also feel guilty at the thought of using poisons and traps and other cruel means to get rid of them. Replacing your lawn with artificial grass is the kinder, gentler approach – simply causing the rodents to make their homes elsewhere.

    It’s the only thing that will work, too.

    Converting to artificial grass to eliminate moles and gophers is not a project you want to undertake on your own, for the same reasons you don’t want to purchase artificial turf from a big box store. It takes extensive training and experience to install faux grass properly, so it lives up to your expectations. Quality, professional installation actually involves many steps, including careful ground preparation and multiple layers of different substrates and specially-formulated underlayment and infill products.

    However, when you combine top-quality artificial turf and professional installation, you’ll get superior results – the kind that send diggers packing and leave you with greater peace of mind and a greener future.

  • What To Do If A Critter, Like A Mole, Gets Under Your Artificial Turf?

    Those wretched moles! And their equally wretched cousins, gophers! Digging up a storm, and making a big mess of your lawn, one hole or mound at a time. It’s enough to make any self-respecting home owner throw in the towel. You might as well pave over your yard and be done with it.

    Whoa! We know how frustrated you are with moles, gophers, voles, and their rodent relatives, but that’s no reason to go overboard. There is a saner, prettier solution: switching to artificial grass. Today’s synthetic turf is realistically gorgeous and amazingly tough, so you can achieve two goals at once:

    • Establish a forever-lovely lawn that will foil those pesky rodents
    • Save time, money and the additional aggravation of lawn maintenance

    You don’t often find a solution this valuable.