[Heybuck]

Will, I know from experience that root kill can badly affect the tree which has the roots into your pipe-line. If the offending roots belong to your valued birch tree, you might damage it with root kill. I made our apple tree very sick using root kill.

Old clay pipes fracture at the joints, they start to seep out water, the tree roots finger their way in and start to grow. I know you understand all that.

Having the line roto cleared then a plastic liner fitted will stop leakage and the roots go looking somewhere else for moisture.

JMHO

Ian

[Will]

Good point Ian, thanks.

There are a couple bushes (I dunno what they are and was planning to remove them anyway) right above where the major root intrusion is, but I also know that tree roots can go a long way in search of water. The problem area is probably 15'-20' from the trunk of the tree but that doesn't mean those aren't tree roots.

How badly would digging them up/chopping through them affect the tree? At least it wouldn't be chemical poisoning where the tree would suck that stuff up.

[Heybuck]

I'm no tree expert although my house is surrounded by them, but my opinion would be that by cutting the roots around the pipe you would place your birch in a much better position than if you simply started pouring root kill into the drain.

From what I understand, the root kill is flushed into the drain and because its backed up, the root kill "lingers" in the drain and coats the roots. They absorb the chemical and the roots start to die but at the same time, the chemical is absorbed into the tree.

Just an example on trees, something which staggered me at the time and it still staggers me today. We have a pretty magnificent Elm tree in our garden. Over some years I had noticed it seemed to be suffering with a disease which turned out to be Dutch Elm Disease. Google it if you don't know what it is but basically its a bug which lives in the soil, each year it emerges, travels up the tree and starts eating the leaves. This stops the photosynthesis and the tree struggles and will eventually die. Europe has lost millions of Elms to this disease. So I called in a tree guy, expert in Elm disease. He drilled into the trunk at the base of the tree and injected some potion. Apparently the tree takes the potion up to the leaves and the bugs die. I asked how long it would take to work and he said "watch". I'm telling you within 10-15 minutes the bugs were dropping off, that's how quickly the tree was absorbing the stuff and it traversed to the leaves. I get the tree injected every 3 years and it is back to its original health. So I'm wondering how much damage the root kill will do if your Birch absorbs that quickly too.

Birch and Elms are pretty similar trees......

And the rule of thumb about tree roots is, the roots spread out to the same distance as the tree is high. So a 25 foot high tree will have roots out in the ground 25 foot from the base.

Ian

[Will]

Thanks again! I've never had to water this tree because it's well established but if I dig up some of its roots maybe it would make sense to give it some extra water this summer. I suppose if it's been drinking from the sewer pipe it's going to miss that source!

[limejudge69]

Originally Posted by Will

Thanks! Apparently you missed the part where the line goes under the concrete landing for my side door (which, after looking at it, I think it's part of the foundation of the house), under part of the driveway slab, and under a nice big Birch tree I don't want to kill.... Realistically, there's no other good route for it. I'd have to draw the layout of my house & driveway to fully explain it, but trust me, digging it all up would be an immense amount of work and would involve breaking up part of the driveway slab, killing that tree, and trying to work under the side door landing.

But, as mentioned, I can take care of the worst of the issues by replacing one section that's pretty easy to get to with PVC.

If you have a crawl space or basement and can access the main sewer line where it exits the home, it isn't uncommon to reroute a line around obstacles, driveways, sidewalks, etc. You can run it where and how you need, as long as you have fall and end up tying in near the property line.