Okay I'm being dead serious. Based on your location, your bermuda lawn will not be ready for leveling until July. Please reconsider your timing. I'd hate to see you back here in April wondering how to revive your bermuda. I have seen an improved variety of bermuda lawn smothered in the early spring by using too much compost. That lawn never did come back. Finally, 2 years later, the owner sold the house, and the new owner replaced the sorry looking lawn with St Augustine. Do you know who the experts are in leveling? It is the baseball community. Every professional baseball infield is leveled before every game so the multimillionaire athletes are not hurt by stepping on a clod or something. Check out this article on how they do it. Following close behind the baseball community is the rodeo community. They level their arena soil before every event all day long. They use the same sort of equipment but do not go to all the trouble the baseball people do. The key tool in their bag of tools is the drag. I made my own drag with a piece of chain link fence about 6 feet by 8 feet. I wired one edge to a 2x4 about 8 feet wide, tied a 12-foot rope to each end, and pulled the drag around behind me walking in every direction until I was happy (or was I exhausted???). It worked like a charm and saved uncountable man-hours of raking. I had to weigh down the drag to get a good effect in my sand. I think I used a couple more 2x4s and a bag of mulch (very scientific). Then if you really want to groom it, pull a rug behind you. You can get putting green perfection when you use the right tools. A rake is not the right tool. I am obviously not the person to ask about aerating and the whats and whens, but I always have an opinion. I would fertilize before aerating. If you fertilize afterward you would be dropping fertilizer into holes.

I recently had a new sump installed by a plumber after having him come out for his opinion on the increased waterflow this year. I actually believe now its just due to the rising watertable caused by the large amount of percipitation this year. In any case, he made the suggestion that I replace the existing pump because it was getting old and was being worked hard. He put in a Hydromatic with a membrane pressure switch. The switch was not rated to go off until a height which would fill 75% of the drain tile inlet. I voiced concerns, and he told me not to worry. Fast forward 3 months. I started to notice a lot of silt in the well. It looks like most of it was coming from soil surrounding the well erroding due to the standing water. There is a gap between the inlet pipe and the cut-out in the manufacturered well it feeds into, and I saw a stream of silt coming through there while its filled. Ultimately, the switch failed (which is odd for this type of switch) and I replaced it with a correctly sized switch that goes off prior to the inlet. Now I have concerns about the reprecussions of the errosion caused during this timeframe. I also am noticing more silt coming thru the inlet itself than before. Is this something to be concerned about even though water is still clearly coming in? A complicating factor is that I have another well...which is supposed to be strictly for draining the washing machine and floor drain. Unfortunately, its not a sealed sewage well, but rather another sump well. It never had issues with groundwater before, but after adding the higher switch it started to fill up, also thru the crack between the floor-drain inlet and the well formation hole. Its very slow, but it still fills up. In fact, when the switch failed in the sump...the water level stopped raising in the sump well and seemed to divert entirely to the other well - obviously routing itself through the dirt under the slab. It was still coming through, though at a much slower rate, a couple of days after installing the new lower switch. I am hopeful it will stop in the coming days, but either way I have to wonder if permanent damage was caused. That said, is it wise to seal off both of the gaps in each well with some silicon caulk or perhaps JB Weld? Well, I have some other concerns about exterier drainage, but I'll get to those a little later as I see I've blabbed on long enough. Thanks to anyone who read thru this and can offer some advice. Thanks, Jeff

Here’s my guess from outer space: ”level 5 textured” means they skim coated the existing textured wall to make it flat. Similar to what you would do when taking a plain level 4 drywall finish to a level 5. My opinion based on the first photo where the light is at an angle: That is not a good paint job. I have level 5 walls in my house, some areas sprayed some rolled with a fine nap. Neither look that bumpy no matter how close you look with your eye. My walls were sprayed with BM low/no VOC paint. The paint is very high in solids and is extremely hard to do correctly. That paint requires a large orifice nozzle that makes it very easy to apply too thick if you are not an expert. That paint dries within hours, which is not enough time for any meaningful self leveling to take place. If you apply it too thick the first time your only option is to come back the next day and sand it down (a real time consuming pain). It took me 3 tries with a 2k spray gun and I can confidently say spraying that brand of paint requires a high level of skill you will pay for.

Not a concern. The plaster contractors will most likely get the area level. Please be aware the floors will never be perfectly flat and level. They will be close. You may notice imperfections on the floor when you turn the lights on at night. Hopefully an automatic cleaner is part of the contract. It will run daily and pick up any debris.