Reply To: lightweight fill for sod lawn

Stairs going up, or stairs going down? The difficulty with the wheelbarrow is keeping it level. One person is higher than the other in carrying it up or down stairs leaving someone in high risk of a back injury. Plastic trash cans carried on the shoulder is safer, but you can’t carry much more than 2 cubic feet at a time that way (vs. 5 CF in a full wheel barrow). You can use a wheel barrow or appliance cart to move the barrels everywhere else and only have to carry them up and down the stairs. 

…. I used to have a contract removing seaweed from beaches (7 beaches, 7 days a week for three months) that were only accessible by stairs – lots of stairs. That is how we did it.

“Fill dirt” or soil for the sod?

If it is soil – you could build the soil in place by bringing bales (they are actually bags) of peat moss for 1/3 of the volume. Sand is lighter than some more clay soils and resists compaction under a lawn …. for another 1/3 of the volume. And finally you can lump the last third of native topsoil in,.or spend the money on 2 cubic foot bags. 

I know that in my area there are a couple of places that will rent conveyor belts for moving soil – mostly for when someone is excavating under a house and they can’t fit a skid steer under it.