OT-water softener discharge vs tree roots?

[sjh]

Does the brine discharge during regeneration have the same effect on tree roots as copper sulfate"

 

[LLigetfa]

I don't think it does but it can kill trees if it is not diluted enough by groundwater.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[ditttohead]

From years and years of experience, the simple answer is no. I assume you are referring to the drain lines. The short burst of salty water will have little affect since it is rinsed away shortly after with fresh water.

 

[LLigetfa]

Copper sulfate has many uses but in the case of tree roots in drains, its purpose is to kill only the short portion of root that is invading the drain pipe/drain field to keep it from further invasion. Brine from a water softener does not cause the roots to withdraw but rather they take up the brine into the tree affecting the entire tree if there is not enough clear water to dilute it.
https://www.almacity.com/documents/184/Tree_Root_Control.pdf

 

[bingow]

After we built our home and installed a 30K grain softener, we made the mistake of "draining to daylight" about 15' away from the house. It killed a 6" diameter juniper and cleared a large area of wild grass down to bare ground. It took 10 years for the grass to even begin to regrow. Our remedy was a shallow 1-½" x 60' PVC underground drain that we terminated with a P trap at start of the septic leach field piping. Being salty and of fairly fast flow, it hasn't frozen.

 

[ditttohead]

Softener drains can have negative, no, or positive affects on different plants and different soils. When i first started doing softening repairs 35 years ago I told a homeowner he could not continue to drain his softener onto his beautiful, lush green lawn because it would kill it... as soon as the words came out of my mouth I realized this softener was probably at least 20 years old... Personally I have a brine diversion system at my house, the low tds regenerant water goes to the lawn, the high tds goes to sewage. It has been operating for ten years, the valve failed a year ago and I knew within a week that the lawn was being horribly affected. It took a while to get the sodium/chlorides out of the soil but it all came back eventually. Simply put, no absolute answer on this one.