Reseeding Lawn estimate

[Lawn Wizard]

Hi everyone. Ihave a customer that would like her whole lawn reseeded 4500 sq. ft. The current lawn is completey overgrown with weeds! So I would have to tear out everything she has. So here is what I have and just wanted to see if I was missing anything or way out of line with the price. Thanks!

ReSeed Lawn 4500 sq. ft.

Materials - Seed $130.00
Dirt (20 yds) $225.00
Fertilizer $60.00
Vegetation Killer $122.00
Soil Test $25.00

Equipment - Bobcat $205.00 for 8hrs running time
Dumpster (10yd) $175.00

Labor - 20 Hrs @ $25.00/Hr $500.00

Total - $1442.00

Also I guess I have a secondary question of once I kill all of the vegetation and have removed it how long should I wait before planting the seed? I dont want the vegetation killer disrupting the seed germanation!


Thanks for your help!

[Eric ELM]

Do they have holes in the lawn? Wondering why you are getting all the dirt. If they want it done cheaper, you can just kill the weeds and 2 weeks later, aerate it and overseed it. Then put down starter fertilizer and water it daily and you should have a nice lawn. The dead weeds and what grass is left, will help to hold the seeds in place that don't end up in the holes.

If you have something to drag around and break up the cores, that helps cover the seeds too. I did all of this to a lawn last fall that was very weedy and it is now beautiful. :)

BTW, if you use Roundup, I would wait 2 weeks to seed.

[KirbysLawn]

Same question as Eric, why all the work?

Should take 40 pounds of seed at the most, 1/3 bag of fert, soil test, areate or aeravate if possible, and your done. Just mow the weeds short then kill weeds now, no need to dig them up and haul off, wait then seed. Deal with any additional weeds next year.

[CMerLand]

Eric,

Just curious why you recommend waiting two weeks after using roundup?? It has no soil activity and only affects growing green material. Is this in case areas are missed to insure complete kill or have you had a problem seeding prior to the two weeks. Ive seeded within a week of an application and have had no problem with the new seedlings.

CMerLand

[Eric ELM]

After posting this, I realized I should of said 1 week. This has been a long week trying to play catch up with all the rain. I think we will get them all finished today. :)

[awm]

eric got it right again. i would possibly wait
extra wk to hit any thing that suvived.
hard to believe you fellas can plant seed this time of yr.
only reason we would do it here is if we like to watch baby fescue die.exception being sprinkler system.

[Lawn Wizard]

Thanks for the imput. That was my biggest concern was digging the weeds an hauling them a way. Mostly I wanted the dirt around to just fll in any holes that I created by tearing out the weeds. If just killing off the current vegetation will do the job that seems to be much simplier and cost effective. Thanks a lot guys!

[awm]

be sure and use roundup or a herbicide that gets root to.