Sod removal is the first step in a lot of yard projects: a new garden bed, a patio, a regrade, or a lawn so far gone that starting over is easier than fixing it. Lifting it is hard work but not complicated. The part that catches people out is what comes after, when they discover that a modest patch of lawn weighs several tonnes and most curbside programs will not take it.
This guide covers the three ways to get rid of grass, when to do it, how heavy old sod really is, and what you can do with it once it is up. It is written for homeowners doing the work themselves, from a single garden bed to a whole front yard.
Before you start
Decide what is going in its place, because that decides how you remove the sod.
- For a garden bed, you can smother the grass and plant through it later. Nothing has to leave the property.
- For a patio, walkway or shed base, the sod and some of the topsoil must come out completely. Organic material left under a hard surface rots and settles.
- For new lawn, you need the old sod gone and the soil loosened and levelled.
Then mark anything shallow. Sprinkler heads and lines, invisible pet fence wire and low-voltage landscape lighting cables all sit just under the surface where a sod cutter will find them. If your project goes deeper than sod, such as digging out a patio base, request free locates from the Ontario Dig Authority first.
Measure the area. You will need the square footage to plan the disposal, and it is easier to do with the lawn still there.
When to do it
The best time to lift sod is when the soil is moist but not wet. Water the lawn well a day or two before you start, or wait a day after a good rain.
Too dry, and the roots grip hard clay and the cutter bounces. Too wet, and the sod tears, the soil sticks to everything, and each strip weighs far more than it should. Spring and early fall usually give the right conditions in Ontario. Midsummer drought makes the job miserable, and frozen ground makes it impossible.
If you are smothering instead, timing works the other way. Late summer or fall is a good time to lay it down, because the grass dies over the winter and the bed is ready to plant in spring.
Method 1: by hand
For small areas, a couple of hundred square feet or less, hand removal is often fastest once you count the trip to rent and return a machine.
You need a flat, sharp spade or an edging tool, and ideally a sod lifter or a long-handled flat shovel. A kick-type manual sod cutter, if you can find one, makes it easier.
- Cut the lawn into strips about a foot wide by pushing the spade straight down along a line.
- Cut across each strip every couple of feet so the pieces stay liftable.
- Slide the spade or lifter under the roots, an inch or two down, and lift each piece away.
- Shake off some loose soil if you want to keep it on site, and stack the pieces.
It is slow, steady work. Expect to stop often, lift with your legs, and share it if you can.
Method 2: a rented sod cutter
For anything bigger, a powered sod cutter is the right tool. Equipment rental stores carry them. It is a heavy, self-propelled machine with a blade that slices horizontally under the turf at a depth you set, leaving clean strips you can roll up.
How to get the most out of one:
- You will need a truck or trailer and help loading it. Ask the rental store about ramps.
- Set the depth just below the root zone, usually an inch or two. Deeper cuts mean much heavier strips.
- Make a test pass on an edge, check the strip, and adjust.
- Cut in straight lines, then go back and cut the strips into lengths you can lift.
- Roll each strip up as you go, so you are not walking on loose sod.
- Keep feet and hands clear of the blade, and be careful on slopes and near walls.
A cutter can lift a large front lawn in a few hours. Rolling, carrying and loading the strips takes much longer than the cutting, so line up helpers and have the disposal ready before you start.
Method 3: smothering
If the sod does not need to leave, you can kill it where it is. Sheet mulching means mowing the grass short, covering it with overlapping cardboard, wetting it, and piling several inches of compost or mulch on top. Solarizing or tarping means covering the lawn with plastic sheeting for weeks in summer so the heat and darkness kill the grass.
Both take time: weeks at minimum, often a season. Both keep the organic matter in your soil, which plants love. Neither works for a patio or a walkway, because the dead turf is still there. It is the right method for a garden bed when you are not in a hurry.
How heavy is sod?
This is the part that surprises people. Freshly lifted sod is mostly soil and water held together by roots. By our planning figures, soil and sod run about 1.0 to 1.4 tonnes per cubic yard.
To work out what you have, multiply the area by the thickness of the cut. Some examples, using the same figures:
- 100 square feet cut 2 inches thick is about 17 cubic feet, or 0.6 cubic yards. That is roughly 0.6 to 0.9 tonnes.
- 500 square feet at 2 inches is about 83 cubic feet, or 3.1 cubic yards. That is roughly 3 to 4.5 tonnes.
- A 1,000 square foot front lawn at the same depth is roughly double that.
Wet sod weighs more than dry sod, and a deeper cut adds weight fast. Run your own numbers in our cubic yard calculator.
What to do with old sod
You have more options than hauling it away.
Reuse it. If the sod is healthy, use it to patch bare spots elsewhere in the yard, or offer it to a neighbour. Lay it the same day; lifted sod dries out quickly.
Compost it. Stack the pieces grass side down in an out-of-the-way corner, water the pile, and cover it with a tarp. In a year or so it breaks down into usable soil. This is the cheapest option if you have space and patience.
Build with it. Upside-down sod makes a good bottom layer in a raised bed, or fill for a low spot that is about to be topsoiled and seeded.
Use your municipality's program, if it takes sod. Many do not, and the rules vary:
- The Region of Waterloo lists sod among items its yard waste collection does not take, along with soil and stumps.
- Durham Region's yard waste program does not accept sod either.
- Peterborough accepts small quantities of sod within its 13 kg limit per container, but not large quantities.
- Barrie accepts sod at the curb within its 20 kg limit, and at its landfill once the soil has been removed.
- Kingston does not take sod at the curb, but accepts it at the Kingston Disposal Site if it is dry with the excess dirt shaken off.
Notice how small those weight limits are. At 13 to 20 kg per bag, a few hundred square feet of sod is a very large number of bags. Our yard waste pickup guide explains how those programs work.
Haul it. For anything more than a small patch, a bin is usually the practical answer.
Planning a bin for sod
Treat sod like soil: heavy, dense, and limited by weight rather than space.
Book the smallest bin. A 10-yard bin is the size for sod and soil, because a cubic yard or two already uses up the 1 metric tonne of disposal included with a standard rental, and a larger bin full of sod could never be lifted. Our 10-yard bin guide shows the size.
Tell us it is sod and how many square feet. We will plan it as a heavy load and tell you how full the bin can go. Our landscape debris bins take sod and soil, and our dirt and concrete service handles larger heavy loads.
Load it flat. Lay strips grass side down across the floor of the bin rather than heaping them at one end, and stop at the fill line we give you.
For a single small bed, a Bam Bag is worth a look. It is rated to 1 tonne, which covers roughly 100 square feet of sod at a 2 inch cut by the figures above.
Book the bin before the cutter. Rolling sod straight from the lawn into the bin saves you handling every piece twice.
Mistakes that make the job harder
Most sod removal problems come from the same handful of decisions.
Cutting too deep. Every extra inch of depth is another layer of soil you have to lift, carry and pay to dispose of. Take the roots and as little soil as you can. If the project needs more soil out, such as a patio base, dig that separately once the sod is gone.
Working when the ground is soaked. Wet sod tears into ragged chunks, clogs the cutter, and can weigh much more than the same sod a few dry days later. If it has rained hard, wait.
Leaving rolls in the sun. Freshly lifted sod stacked in a heap in July heats up, dries out, and starts to rot within days. If you plan to reuse it, lay it the same day. If you plan to haul it, load it as you go.
Piling it against the house or a fence. A big stack of wet sod against siding or a wooden fence holds moisture where you do not want it. Stack it on the lawn or the driveway instead, on a tarp if you want an easy cleanup.
Stuffing it into yard waste bags. Even where a program accepts sod, a paper bag full of it blows past the weight limit almost immediately, and the bag tears when it is lifted. Check the limit and fill bags only partway, or use another option.
Mixing it with light debris without saying so. Sod thrown into a bin booked for brush or household junk turns a light load into a heavy one. That is fine if we know about it, and a surprise for everyone if we do not.
Forgetting the edges. Grass creeps back from the edges of a new bed or patio. Cut a clean line, and put in edging or a barrier where the remaining lawn meets the new surface.
After the sod is gone
With the turf off, rake out roots and stones, loosen the top few inches, and check the grade. Soil should slope gently away from the house. Add topsoil where needed before you seed, lay new sod, or start the patio base.
Where we help
We deliver bins for sod removal and landscaping projects across our service area, including Kitchener, Waterloo, Belleville, Picton, Cobourg and Port Hope. Tell us the square footage and how deep you are cutting, and we will size the bin so the weight works.
