"The Ranger" wrote in message
...
I am unlucky enough to have city-planted liquid amber planted on my little
strip of meridian. The damned tree is older than my house and over 70' tall
with a trunk that measures 20". The root system for this behemoth is
extensive and a source of constant pain for me.

The latest issue I have is the off-shoot root that is now lifting my
driveway entrance slab. It's lifted the entire _piece_ of cement three
inches making entrance and exit of my driveway exciting. The cement isn't
broken; I'm not looking to destroy it either.

I'd like to lift the slab and thus remove the root causing the problem
without breaking the slab into multiple chunks. Is there a way of do this?

The Ranger


There was a TV show a while back on what a liquid amber tree could do to a
swimming pool, concrete slab, foundation and the house itself. The tree was
something like 60' away and yet the it was able to destroy the foundation,
got inside the house and moved it out of level, breaking tiles, etc. Cutting
the roots didn't help as it come right back, maybe killing the tree won't
help either. Everywhere they dig around, the owners found root systems
getting under the foundation, concrete slab, etc. Some of the roots look
like 10" in diameter running under the house. Incredibly aggressive and
tenacious. The structure engineer hired by the owner estimated it would take
somewhere on the order of $800K for repairs, which was the cost of the
house. Dream house not covered by insurance for this kind of damage became
worthless due to one liquid amber tree.

Right now I would be more concern about the foundation and what's under the
house more than the driveway. You maybe lucky if the city admits liability
and willing to fix the problem.

Further, I have not seen anyone lifting a large concrete slab to extract
roots. Trying so with heavy machine will most likely break it. I've done in
on a small scale by saw cutting into smaller slabs but be aware in time the
cut slabs will become uneven due to soil movements - you need to pin it with
rebar dowels by which time would be just easier to replace the whole slab.
What I've seen is grounding the high spots to eliminate tripping hazard but
3" seems to be too much as you wound not have much of a slab left.

A friend of mine had a problem with trees planted by the city. City selects
type of trees, not property owner. Once its planted it became the owner's
property and responsibility but she was not allow to cut it down even when
she had root problems lifting her driveway! She finally was allowed to
remove it due to tree rot at her expense and after paying a permit fee.
Anyway hope your city is more reasonable and wish you luck having it fixed
by them.