How long does artificial grass last: the warranty, the sun and the small print

“How long does it last?” is the first thing people ask about artificial grass, and almost every answer out there gives a range of years without saying where it comes from. The truth is shorter and more useful: how many years yours will last, nobody knows in advance. The only thing in writing is the warranty.

The short answer: a warranty isn’t a lifespan, and its years come from a laboratory test converted to a sun that needn’t be this one. In Spain the usual warranty is five to nine years, according to a manufacturer in Alicante. What decides how long yours lasts is the sun it gets, the base it sits on and how it’s walked on. And the warranty has to be read in full: the ten-year one we read here only covers the first three years in full.

Where the number of years comes from

Artificial grass fibre is plastic, and plastic breaks down in the sun. To make it last, the manufacturer adds UV protection when the yarn is made. How well it holds up is measured in a laboratory: a sample spends thousands of hours under UV lamps, and then they check how much colour and how much strength it has lost. For sports pitches there’s a European method, the EN 14836 standard; the number of hours is set by each product’s specification.

What the test doesn’t tell you is how many years those hours are worth. Each manufacturer does that sum. International Artificial Grass publishes it like this: 3,000 hours of UVA are equivalent to “6–7 years of sun exposure in most regions”, and to “5–6 years for especially sunny regions”, which for that manufacturer means desert or tropical climates.

In other words: the same grass, with the same test, lasts fewer years where there’s more sun. The people who sell it say so.

The sun here

The Costa del Sol is neither a desert nor the tropics, so in that table it would fall under “most regions”. But the manufacturer doesn’t say which sun that sum is worked out for, and there’s no shortage of sun here: at Málaga airport the average is 2,905 hours of sunshine a year, according to AEMET’s climate normals (1981–2010). From May to September, over 250 a month; in July, 347.

And the grass hardly gets a rest. AEMET records 42 days a year at the airport with a millimetre of rain or more. On the rest, the fibre is in the sun, and in winter there’s no snow to cover it.

So when you’re given an equivalent in years, ask which sun it was worked out for. And if all you’re given is a number of years, with no test behind it, it’s an estimate.

What happens to the fibre

The sun takes two things from the fibre: colour and strength. The second is the one that matters, because a fibre that has lost strength breaks more easily, and it’s the one the warranty we read further down measures. Albergrass, a manufacturer in Alicante, says that with low-quality products, three or four years after installation, the colour has gone and the fibres are visibly degraded.

The other kind of wear has nothing to do with the sun, but with walking on it. Where people always walk, the fibre lies down and shows the infill underneath.

Artificial grass on a play area, worn: the fibre flattened and the infill showing. It isn’t from here. This is the flattening that the warranty below leaves out as normal wear.

A ten-year warranty, read in full

We don’t know what the warranty you’re given will look like. But to know what to look for, it helps to read one in full. This is SYNLawn’s residential warranty, from an American manufacturer, in force since 1 January 2024 and published on its website. It advertises ten years against degradation from the sun.

What each year covers is in its proration table: 100% for the first three, 50% for the fourth and fifth, 25% for the sixth and seventh, and 15% from the eighth to the tenth. It only treats the grass as having failed if the fibre has lost more than 40% of its weight or strength to UV. And the manufacturer is responsible for the product, not for the labour of replacing it.

It also leaves out, in writing, things that aren’t unusual at a house on this coast:

• Normal wear. Flattened fibre in areas with a lot of foot traffic is “normal” and isn’t covered. Nor is a slight change in colour over time.
• The base. Failures from poor ground preparation or poor drainage aren’t included. Why the base matters so much is in artificial grass drainage.
• Reflections. Fibre shrunk or melted by light reflected from a low-emissivity window or another reflective surface.
• Chlorine. Damage from chemicals containing chlorine or other halogens. Next to a pool, it’s worth asking whether the water that splashes out counts. The rest about pools is in artificial grass around a pool.
• Laying it yourself. If the owner installs it, the warranty is void. And it requires maintenance every year.

What does make it last longer

Read like this, the warranty also tells you what’s down to you, because it’s exactly what it doesn’t cover:

• A base that drains and doesn’t move. It’s the part you see least and the one that decides most. How it’s prepared is in artificial grass installation.
• Don’t make the grass the path. If there’s a route walked every day, that stretch flattens before the rest. A few paving slabs on that route take the work off the grass.
• Brush it and clean it. Lift the fibre and get out whatever gets into it. What and when, in artificial grass isn’t zero maintenance.
• Look at the windows. If a large one faces where the grass is going, ask before it goes down: it’s an exclusion that’s in writing because it happens.

What to ask for in writing before you buy

• How many years, and whose. Whether the warranty is the grass manufacturer’s or the installer’s, and what each one covers.
• Whether it’s prorated. What percentage each year covers, not just how many years.
• How failure is measured. What loss of strength, weight or colour counts as a failure.
• The test, and for which sun. How many hours of UV and, if you’re given an equivalent in years, which climate it was worked out for.
• The exclusions and the conditions. Wear, base, reflections, chlorine; and whether it requires an approved installer or maintenance.

In short

How long artificial grass lasts can’t be known in advance: it depends on the sun, the base and the foot traffic. What is in writing is the warranty, which isn’t a lifespan, which in Spain is usually five to nine years, and whose years come from a test converted to a sun worth asking about.

Here there are 2,905 hours of sunshine a year. Before you sign, ask for the whole warranty and read it with those five questions: the years it advertises are worth whatever its small print says.