I strongly recommend against rototilling a lawn to renovate it. It's a lot of work, brings a lot of rocks to the surface that need to be dealt with and destroys the soil structure. Depending on the depth of your topsoil you very well may end up bringing the poorer underlying subsoil to the surface too. Just not a good idea and a lot of unnecessary work IMO. You're much better off just slit seeding in most cases. You can do a couple of passes without seed in the hopper to level things out, then add seed and make a couple more, with the second one perpendicular to the first.
In cases where the lawn is uneven or has a clumpy growth habit I have have better success with using a power dethatcher (power rake) and then broadcast seeding after hand raking. A slit seeder and a dethatcher are very similar but use different styles of blades, with the slit seeder ones being fixed and the dethatcher being flail-type. You can set the dethatcher a bit deeper, but you will also have a lot more grass/debris to deal with.
In cases where the lawn is uneven or has a clumpy growth habit I have have better success with using a power dethatcher (power rake) and then broadcast seeding after hand raking. A slit seeder and a dethatcher are very similar but use different styles of blades, with the slit seeder ones being fixed and the dethatcher being flail-type. You can set the dethatcher a bit deeper, but you will also have a lot more grass/debris to deal with.
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