Good turf, ruined nine ways.

The base sins.

• 1 · Installing over existing grass or soil: the fatal shortcut; the lawn ripples within a season and only a tear-out fixes it.
• 2 · Skipping or hand-tamping compaction: footprints, furniture legs, and time will find every soft spot.
• 3 · Ignoring drainage slope: water obeys grade, and a flat-bottomed install becomes a bathtub.

The surface sins.

• 4 · Reversed fiber direction on one piece: reads as a permanent color stripe; there is no fix but re-laying.
• 5 · Overlapped or gapped seams: backing must butt precisely; anything else telegraphs forever.
• 6 · Glue in the fibers: trapped blades at seams create a visible matted line.

The finishing sins.

• 7 · Starving the infill, the top cost-cut: blades mat, backing UV-ages faster, warranty questions follow. Spec quantities are on every product page.
• 8 · Spiking too sparse or too deep: edges lift in the first wind, or dimples pock the perimeter.
• 9 · Skipping the power broom: infill sits on top instead of in the pile, and the lawn never looks finished.

The meta-mistake: buying blind.

Wrong product for the job outranks every install error: putting-green turf in a dog run, plush landscape pile in a batting cage, bargain fiber in desert sun. Free samples and published specs exist precisely to prevent this one; use both.