I did a bid last year for $31,212.50 to install an area of 11,350 sq.ft. at $2.75 a sq.ft.
The access was really bad, the house was built on a slope/hill.
So the front yard was a slope and the house level and the back yard was a slope as well. The only access to the the back yard was a stairway down on the side of the house. In order to wheel in soil and the sod was going down the front yard slope, stop and dump it in front of the stairs and shovel it to another wheelbarrow down below w/two guys doing this and another two guys rotortilling and grading/level by hand. With the help of another guy wheeling the soil to the area.
Just imagine bringing the sod. having the sod people delivering to a flat area and having us wheeling it down the front slope and carrying it down the stairs and placing as much sod as you can carry on the wheelbarrow, then wheeling it down the slope to the area in the back.
He got other bids he told me and they were not as detailed as I was and their bids were much higher than mine. The total bid was $72,500 with Labor and Materials (Sod installation, irrigation, retaining walls, stairs, brick pathways, and fruit trees) Till this day he has not had any installation, he is trying to do it all himself with some of his buddies.
Well you have to consider the Terrain and Access to the proposed area of installation.
I had only 5 installations last year at $2 per sq.ft. I attended college classes for Landscape Construction in early 1999 and the list of prices they gave me were average prices other contractors charged in the area in 1997. With the cost of living here rising, these contractors must be charging over $2 sq.ft. regardless of size of installation in 1999. Later this year who knows.
If I missed something I appologize I think I'm rambaling to much.
Talk to you guys later.
