Remove the Old Dirt and Grass 

You will need a sharp spade shovel, or rent a mechanical sod cutter to remove the old turf. Make sure to remove the clumps of grass and level the area.
If there is a sprinkler system installed, you can either pull it up or just leave it. It's probably best to just pull the exposed sprinkler heads to help even out the ground, and if you or a new homeowner ever wants to install grass again, you can just re-attach the heads. We would like to dig about 2-4" down from the ground level.

SUBBASE PREPARATION

In order to choose the perfect subbase, it depends on what kind of installation you are going to do. If you are planning to do a putting green installation, then it requires to use decomposed granite to achieve the certain level, whereas the landscape project can work with any gravel/concrete mixture, such as type2road base. A 2-inch layer of subbase material should be applied to the excavation, lightly wetted and compacted two or three times. This can be accomplished with a vibratory plate compactor, but smaller applications and hard-to-reach corners should be compacted with a manual tamper. The amount of subbase material you need to install depends on how deep your excavation is and how much of the artificial grass’ pile height you want exposed.

Underlayment 

In order to prevent any natural grass grow back again, it is advised to install a landscape fabric, such as our Weed Barrier, either above or below the subbase depending on the type of soil in the area. 

To make sure all grass blades stand upright, leave it out in the sun for 1–2 hours. Inspect the material before making permanent alterations. If the install requires seams, orient the largest piece of grass first and rough-cut where needed; best practice is to leave a couple inches of excess on the perimeter just in case. Once your turf has been measured and oriented as desired, anchor one side of the installation with a row of nails placed 1 inch inward and spaced 6 inches apart. Use a carpet kicker to fully lengthen the turf for a taut installation—anchoring with more nails as you continue to kick and stretch. 

The most common method of joining the separate pieces of turf is parallel seaming. To seam a piece of turf, open up an opening of 12 inches and cut the necessary length of non-adhesive seam tape. Secure the ends of the tape with nails and drizzle Supreme Seam glue down the center of the tape strip. Spread the glue evenly over the entire tape using a trowel or piece of cardboard. Let the glue sit for about 15 minutes or until tacky, then unpin and drop one side at a time onto the tape and glue. Starting in the middle of the seam, hammer nails every 1-3 inches in a staggered arrangement along the seam line.

Complete the perimeter by first fine-cutting any excess turf and installing a perimeter board, if necessary. If no perimeter board is installed, carefully fine-cut the turf to exactly where the perimeter line will be and secure it with nails every 3 inches. Once the perimeter is secured, continue to hammer nails every 3 square feet within the interior. Be sure to spread the blades and fully expose the backing material when nailing so that no fibers are caught beneath the nail head, leaving the nail exposed

When spreading infill, evenly and quickly distribute the material by spreading 40-50 bags of infill into the infill spreader and setting the dial to the desired ratio of pounds per square foot. Walk at a moderate pace up and down the install site until all infill has been distributed. Work the infill into the grass fibers either by using a Turf Broom or Power Broom; continue until you cannot see any exposed infill. For edges and tight corners, you may need to spread the infill by hand.