Neville Newman
New Member
I just finished repairing a pipe separation beneath a bathroom. Not particularly relevant to my question, but for the curious, a vertical connection from a 3" sweep had pulled out of the bottom of a 4-way combo fitting which collects the last bathroom on this drain system.
The house is built on a concrete slab, the bathroom is on an outside wall, and I had to tunnel in about 3 feet from the perimeter to reach the disconnect. There are large boxwood shrubs and a couple of large crape myrtle trees in the flower bed area, 5 ft to 10 ft from the tunnel. When the pipe pulled out of the fitting (the groundswells and shrinks and generally moves around a lot in this part of Texas), a 1/4 inch gap was created and roots quickly grew into the gap and clogged up the pipe.
Now that it is repaired, and given the way it was repaired (with the movement issues in mind), I am not terribly worried about future breaks or disconnects, but I want to do what I can to mitigate any potential future problems even if their likelihood is low.
I would like to add something into the tunnel that will keep roots from growing under there, permanently .
I really don't want to use Roundup or any glyphosate-based produce and I doubt that such would work for this anyway, as they are supposed to be absorbed through the leaves of a living plant and then kill off the roots. Also, these products supposedly break down quickly in the soil. With the possible link to lymphoma, I'd just rather stay clear of this stuff.
I could salt the fill, but it seems that the salt (rock salt pellets) would need to be in the long-term presence of moisture to liquefy and spread through the fill. If roots just grow between the separated salt pellets, that doesn't help me.
When I had foundation-repair tunneling done in the distant past, the crew back filled with sand but they mixed the sand with Bentonite. The crew boss told me that when the Bentonite is exposed to moisture (which they did when the fill was almost complete) that it swells but then does not shrink back later. That part is sort of irrelevant (I don't mind the feature, but in this location I'm not too worried about thoroughness of the fill). However, if the Bentonite also discourages root growth then I could get 2 benefits at the same time by using it. In my internet searching, however, I have not found any information re. Bentonite's affects on root growth.
This seems like something that every plumber and every foundation company would want to know how to solve. But I'm striking out there.
Does anyone here have tried/tested experience to offer? I'm already awash in theories, so I don't need those.
The house is built on a concrete slab, the bathroom is on an outside wall, and I had to tunnel in about 3 feet from the perimeter to reach the disconnect. There are large boxwood shrubs and a couple of large crape myrtle trees in the flower bed area, 5 ft to 10 ft from the tunnel. When the pipe pulled out of the fitting (the groundswells and shrinks and generally moves around a lot in this part of Texas), a 1/4 inch gap was created and roots quickly grew into the gap and clogged up the pipe.
Now that it is repaired, and given the way it was repaired (with the movement issues in mind), I am not terribly worried about future breaks or disconnects, but I want to do what I can to mitigate any potential future problems even if their likelihood is low.
I would like to add something into the tunnel that will keep roots from growing under there, permanently .
I really don't want to use Roundup or any glyphosate-based produce and I doubt that such would work for this anyway, as they are supposed to be absorbed through the leaves of a living plant and then kill off the roots. Also, these products supposedly break down quickly in the soil. With the possible link to lymphoma, I'd just rather stay clear of this stuff.
I could salt the fill, but it seems that the salt (rock salt pellets) would need to be in the long-term presence of moisture to liquefy and spread through the fill. If roots just grow between the separated salt pellets, that doesn't help me.
When I had foundation-repair tunneling done in the distant past, the crew back filled with sand but they mixed the sand with Bentonite. The crew boss told me that when the Bentonite is exposed to moisture (which they did when the fill was almost complete) that it swells but then does not shrink back later. That part is sort of irrelevant (I don't mind the feature, but in this location I'm not too worried about thoroughness of the fill). However, if the Bentonite also discourages root growth then I could get 2 benefits at the same time by using it. In my internet searching, however, I have not found any information re. Bentonite's affects on root growth.
This seems like something that every plumber and every foundation company would want to know how to solve. But I'm striking out there.
Does anyone here have tried/tested experience to offer? I'm already awash in theories, so I don't need those.