Trades & Labor New Home Projects Help

Moved into new house last month and have projects I need to complete. One, I am looking for someone to build a concrete driveway for me. And two, I need to find someone who can level my lawn with or without adding additional soil. The lawn is approximately 325 sqm. Any recommendations or suggestions are appreciated. Have had a few landscaping quotes that even my house by builder thinks are ridiculously high. Thanks. I'm in Valencia.

 

my wife's family did our driveway for my new house in Bacong. Saved a lot of money. you are welcome to see it.

 

You'll need to ascertain:
1. are the any big rocks that would need to be moved/removed (expensive, and might be difficult to assess without digging).
2. assuming you would want your lawn to be slightly above street level (to avoid standing water after heavy rain), it should not be all that difficult to calculate whether you need additional soil and how much.

From what I heard, you can get backfill at around 4,000 php per truckload of 3 cubic meters (around 100 cubic ft). However, if you don't need to raise the level by much more than 20-30 cm (less than a foot), you probably don't want to use backfill (which is a mix of dirt and small rocks, that garden plants, including a lawn, won't prosper on). Proper garden soil will be much more expensive.
I don't dare to hazard a guess as to how much more expensive. Your best bet might then be to move some of the existing soil from where you want plant borders to where you could put strong grass sods (Bermuda/Manila grass) that may survive on not so good soil. Then fill up the borders with good garden soil.
As for hiring a gardener to do the actual work with a wheelbarrow and shovel, 500P a day should go a long way.
But yes, if you're looking to create a fancy garden with "landscaping" advice/execution then you'll need a bigger budget.

 

Dutchie gave some good info here, in Valencia where I also live at the North end of Smith st. There are many folks there grow grass for sale, likely you can find someone there to level and plant grass for you. When I say level I do not mean that in the true sense, never have anything flat and level here always have a slope so water can drain off. This also applies to concrete. Backfill for the rough stuff with stones is a bit less than 4k per load. Good gravel sand is also worth adding to give good surface drainage, that is 2.2k per load

 

Thanks for the comments. Arrived back in December after two years lockout. Still adjusting to doing things differently than in the US.

 

Welcome back!