Ways to Prevent Tree Roots from Clogging Your Sewer Drains

Years ago I read that a rather famous author had outlined plans for a memorial in his honor after he had shuffled off of this mortal coil. I don’t remember his name, but I thought that his idea was kind of neat. It went something like this: He wanted to be buried in a nice area, a park perhaps, in a simple pine box. Inside the box, a shovel full of fresh dirt and an acorn would be placed upon his chest. Over time the acorn would grow into a mighty oak tree, and he would provide some of the nourishment, so to speak. The tree would act as a monument to him over the next few hundred years as people walked by. I don’t know if this story is even true or not, but if there is an ACORN of truth in it, the author was probably English. There are still a few Druid organizations over there, and those guys have a lot of reverence for the trees, especially the oak.

Whether its physically possible for an acorn to sprout under the circumstances described above is anyone’s guess, but here in St. Louis, we sure have had our problems this year with tree roots getting in places where they don’t belong. The severe drought that we have been going through this past summer along with ageing sewer lines have given rise to an increasing number of “root intrusions.” The St. Louis underground in general hasn’t been fairing so hot either. Two gas explosions from leaks in the pipe system have leveled a couple of houses recently and the number is on the rise.

Trees will scout out water in a drought like a douser on steroids, and the sewers are full of; you guessed it, water. It starts when the tree root encounters some damp soil. The root, over time, will grow in the direction that the water is coming from. There’s another bonus for the tree too. The sewer pipes are filled with effluent that is very nutritious for the plant. It’s sort of like the tree winning the lottery: water and food all at the same time. Tree roots can creep into cracks or voids in the pipe, snagging debris like toilet paper and sanitary napkins that are flushed down toilets. The fact that the sewer system in St. Louis is old and poorly maintained, and the shrinking and expanding water levels in the soil, adds to the problem.

The problem has caused the Metropolitan Sewer District to spend some $3.4 million on blocked sewer lines this year. That is double what they spent last year at this time. Blocked main calls have risen from 310 last year to some 775 in 2006.

If the root problem is outside of your property, then you’ll have to rely on MSD to fix it, but there are several things that you can to prevent “root intrusion” on your property. The most basic is not to plant any “water hungry” trees like elm, maple, or oak near where your sewer drain lines are located. It might also be a good idea to be a little proactive and call a licensed plumber to conduct a video inspection of your drains before there is a problem. There are some herbicidal products out there like Root-X that are supposed to kill the offending roots without harming the tree, but they can take months to completely work. Finding out if you have a potential problem before you have to start digging up the lines is probably well worth the additional cost.