How much infill artificial turf needs, by pile height

Infill sits in the base of the fibers, down in the curly thatch layer on landscape turf. Its job is to hold the blades upright, add weight so the turf does not shift, and take the abrasion that would otherwise wear the fiber base. The right amount depends on the pile height and how dense the turf is, so the table below is a starting point and the manufacturer spec, if you can find it, is the answer.

These are approximate. Denser turf holds less sand because the fibers take up the room; thinner turf needs more to stand up. If the installer left a roll label or a care sheet, the pounds-per-square-foot figure on it beats anything in this table.

1. Pick five spots: the main walking path, the pet zone, a shaded strip, an edge, and one untouched corner nobody walks on. The corner is your reference for what the yard was installed with.
2. Part the fibers with your fingers and push a ruler or a nail down until it touches the backing. Read where the infill surface sits.
3. Or measure the exposed fiber above the infill and subtract it from the pile height. On a 1 1/2 inch pile with 1 inch of fiber showing, you have about half an inch of infill.
4. Write the five numbers down. A path that reads a quarter inch lower than the corner has migrated or compacted; a pet zone that reads high and crusty has been topped over a smell.
5. Press your palm down. Infill that feels like damp cake rather than loose sand is saturated with organics and needs cleaning or replacing, not adding to.

Do this once a year, after the spring deep clean, and you will catch thin spots before the fibers start to mat. Our matted paths page explains why low infill and matting go together.

Dry silica sand weighs about 95 to 105 pounds per cubic foot, which gives you a rule you can do in your head: one pound of sand covers one square foot to a depth of about an eighth of an inch. From there:

Worked example: a 600 square foot lawn reads a quarter inch low on the 300 square feet of path and pet zone and fine elsewhere. You need 300 × 2 = 600 pounds, or 12 bags, for the low areas only. Do not spread it across the whole yard; the untouched half does not need it and will end up over-filled.

Two cautions. Zeolite-type odor infill is noticeably lighter than sand, so go by the coverage chart on the bag rather than this table. And every figure here is approximate: sand settles, some works down into the thatch, and a yard that has never been brushed will swallow the first few bags into the flattened fibers.

The depth is the same as the rest of the yard; the material is different. Plain silica sand holds urine residue and gives bacteria a place to live. Odor-control infill, either a zeolite-type mineral that binds ammonia or a sand with an antimicrobial coating, does the same structural job while holding the smell down between rinses. Most pet yards do fine with the odor infill in the zone the dog actually uses and plain sand everywhere else.

Do not go deeper in the pet zone to soak up more. Deeper infill holds more urine and dries slower, which on the Grand Strand's humid stretch from May to October can mean days at a time without fully drying. If the existing infill in the zone is crusted, dark and smells stronger below than above, it is past cleaning: we extract it and replace it, which is the infill replenishment service, and it costs less than it sounds because the zone is usually under 200 square feet.

• The yard feels hard and the fibers look short, because they are buried.
• Sand migrates in heavy rain and piles up at the low edge or in the drain.
• A pet zone holds more urine, not less.
• A putting green runs bumpy when sand sits above the tips, and the ball skids instead of rolling.

The fix is redistribution, not removal: we brush the excess from the high spots into the thin ones, and only take infill off the yard when it is contaminated.

If the five-spot check shows more than a quarter inch of difference between the reference corner and the paths, or the pet zone infill is crusted, book a visit. Infill measurement and redistribution are part of every Premium Restoration, from $299 for up to 500 square feet and $399 for 501 to 1,000. Redistribution on its own is $0.35 to $0.65 per square foot, and new infill installed is $0.75 to $1.50 per square foot depending on the material, quoted after we measure. See the price table for the full bands.