They said this is important to them and they are worried. I personally haven't seen it happen before. It will be laying on saint Augustine grass in "an important part of the venue yard". What do you guys think? I don't know much about grass or how to ensure this won't happen – even though I don't think it would personally.
by GreasyButtSyrup
48 Comments
Would they rather people dance directly on the grass? The plywood should distribute load and keep the grass from being damaged.. I’m no grassologist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night
I don’t think so but you can’t dance on grass
It will be kind of trampled underneath but shouldn’t die from six hours. If they are worried about their lawn why did they hire someone to put a dance floor on it?
If it is only a few hours it should be fine
It takes about five days to yellow grass depending on how dry it has been.
Think about tents on campsites in your sort of climate.
It absolutely won’t harm that grass
I don’t know shit about this, and it at least seems plausible to me that the plywood sheeting might damage the grass.
But not less than lying the dance floor directly on the grass. Do they think the plywood is uniquely bad for the grass? If so, why?
The grass will be totally fine, 6 hrs is nothing. If anything the plywood will spread out the force of people jumping and dancing more evenly. There may be some compaction afterwards, but thats a lot better than the damage that would be caused from tons of people sliding their feet around on bare grass and creating divots/ tearing chunks of grass up with their pointy shoes and sick dance moves. The plywood is a great protective measure. The grass may show some signs of stress after a 6 hour stint of being stomped/potentially starved of air but it will recover in a short period. Again, this is much better than dancing on the bare unprotected grass, only way it could be better would be to have some kind of elevated platform to hold up the dance floor but that would be a dangerous tripping/falling hazard.
It’s common practice for construction, utility, etc. Companies to lay plywood down to protect the ground when working which includes even driving on them…
So… Yeah
LMAO No! It’ll be fine!
No
No
No
Be careful, if they are this problematic in the beginning, they will scrutinize everything. Like saying “oh no the grass is trampled and ruined” and ask for compensation . Be ready for it.
Nothing to worry about. All whoever is in charge of the grounds has to do is rake up the grass to stand it up afterwards and by the next mowing you won’t even know something was there
Where is this? Just having the floor down won’t do much to the grass. If it is in full sun in say FL or TX and heats up enough that could kill the grass.
I’ve ran equipment for a couple days on track mats and never had an issue. A few hours is basically a non-issue.
That won’t be a problem from the pressure alone. But it absolutely can happen in summertime heat, simply by ‘cooking’ the grass underneath of the plywood.
I’ve left a sheet of plywood laying on a lawn through the middle of a summer day for only several hours, and ended up with an exact 4×8 patch of dead grass as a result.
For 6 hours, it will most certainly not yellow the grass.
I have a tarp with a kid’s pool for a couple days a few times each during the summer when the grandkids stay with us. I rake the grass after picking up the tarp. Haven’t had an issue (full sun area).
Fluff it up with a little electric leaf blower after your done so it doesn’t look as flat.
If it was in full sun during summer for those 6 hours, and the dance floor was a dark color, then it could get hot and cook the grass, killing it. But the plywood would actually insulate the grass from the hot surface.
This is so stupid I can’t decide whether it’s buyer’s remorse, or just low IQ. The beaten path to the dance floor is going to be damaged grass, and the plywood covered patch is going to be pristine the next day (or even if it’s a couple days later) when you de-construct.
The spiteful me hopes they host their party without your dance floor, and they have a mud pit of destroyed grass with broken bottles and puke adorning their lawn for months afterward.
St. Augustine is not a delicate grass anyway, blades are very thick and hearty. 6 hours should be fine. We have driven onto our lawn to unload stuff and left the SUV sitting on it for a few hours. It was initially squished down of course but back to normal within a day or two. A little watering will help speed the recovery as well.
Will it really only be 6 hours? How long before the party are you setting it up? How long is the party? Will you arrive immediately after the party to pick it up?
It seems like a higher estimate of time might be wise. 6 hours might be fine, but 12 hours not? What do folks here think?
Fun idea- lay a pokey layer at the bottom and market it as aerating the lawn!!
No worse than a dance floor will
Absolutely.
I am not a landscape professional, but I have left large pieces of wood on St Augustine for various lengths of time.
In my experience, if it’s less than a day, you’re generally good. If it gets heated up with the sun, you might see some damage depending on how long it’s there, but it won’t be permanent. More than a day, you’ll see what they’re worried about, but it’ll bounce back.
That’s just the wood literally laying on the grass. Put people on top of it and I think it becomes a little bit of a different story. I used to work in the event business (sound guy for wedding bands) so I’ve seen this, and the grass always recovered. Takes time, but it will.
I work grass. There’s nothing wrong with laying things down for that amount of time. If over 24 hours it may cause a bit of yellowing but not too bad. You’re safe to do so.
No chance, it’ll be absolutely fine.
Say,2/3 days would daunt the grass-even then it would bounce back-grass is pretty tough/resilient/forgiving.👍
In full sun in the summer? Yes. The rest of the year? Probably not.
I wouldn’t if it’s really hot out.
That plywood could bake the grass even through it wouldn’t bake the grass as much as a tarp on a hot day.
No expert, but I wouldn’t expect that to hurt anything.
Are you sure there wasn’t a miscommunication? Maybe they expected something different, like an elevated subfloor, instead of just plywood placed on the ground.
I work for a large tent and event rentals company. We put dance floors out on grass, with a tent over top all the time, starting installs on Wednesdays and we won’t pick up until Sunday or Monday. We literally do this with up to 15 different events a week from April until November. It will be fine.
I would say whatever you do dont promise or guarantee anything. You have no idea what condition the grass is in outside of having a dance floor on it. You can offer some reassurance that “you’ve never had an issue before” but you cant promise.
We had a new patio pit on the back of our house. The skid steer and cement dolly had to get to the back of the house over the grass.
They put plywood over the grass to **protect** it. It was down for 4 days. The grass was fine. No issue.
Sounds like your clients an idiot. If he’s that worried about his grass then he shouldn’t be having a dance floor on it. I doubt it would cause any damage that wouldn’t be repaired within days of removal.
In my case its been tents and tarps rather than plywood…but here’s my experiences…
* “same-day during the day” – no visible impact
* “about 24 hours” – grass may be a bit discolored but recovers in a day or so
* “about 2-3 days” – grass looks quite bad, can take a week or so to recover. Thinner grass areas already struggling tend to not recover.
I’d be shocked if you could see any difference in just 6 hours.
I wouldn’t say the dance floor and plywood subfloor are two separate things. They come as a unit. I.e., you can’t have the parquet part by itself. Your “dance floor” includes a plywood layer to protect the grass and a parquet layer to dance on.
Have you never set this up on grass before? What was the outcome? Any complaints about grass with previous clients? If no, then just tell them you haven’t had any complaints about it in the past and it should be fine. If anything should happen, the client is on the hook, not you.
It’ll yellow but it’ll spring back in a day or so. Your insurance is paid up?
If I had a leaf blower and access to a hose, in 24 hours you’d never know there was a dance floor there.
6-8 Hours wont to anything more than flatten out the lawn. Nothing to worry about imo.
Does the yard need to look pristine as soon as the wood is removed? In a similar experience, it took about a week for everything to be the same color again. But that was a dance floor that was put down in the morning on a warm day.
Depends how hot and sunny it will be that day. If it’s 90 degrees, yeah, that grass will suffer. But he called you for some service so the guy needs to figure out what he wants.
No
Nope. It will flatten the grass and need to be raked up afterwards but it will be fine after only 6hrs. Sounds like they’re laying the ground works for maybe not paying you if they deem the grass damaged. I would pass on this job.
I just had a wedding this week with a large 15×15 foot dance floor similar to this with a plastic underlayment. It was in a shaded area to be fair, but there was no damage. We set up Saturday at noon and they came Sunday before noon to pick it up. Nearly a full 24 hours. No problem. When it’s removed, water the grass and it will pop back up. Dance floor prevents it from being trampled and ruined with dancing.