"MAG" wrote in message
ganews.com...
In article ,
says...


I am sceptical about root killers. When I dig in my garden I cannot get
through roots with an AXE !!! I frequently spend quite a while to get
rid
of pretty modest roots. I have dead trees and YEARS later the roots are
still around in the lawn. So I seriously doubt you can get rid of a
root
by killing it with copper sulfate or whatever. Even if the chemical
kills the root the mechanical obstruction will be around for a long
time.
The chemicals can probably kill fine root hairs, but root hairs do not
stay root hairs for long.

Roland


The way the root killers is as follows, from what I've read:

1. Get the drains clean by mechanically "rooting them out."

2. Periodically use the Root Kill or Root X or whatever. The copper
sulfate is highly poisonous and inhibitory to new root
growth/infiltration.

So, it's unusual that it would actually fix an existing blockage, rather
it is a preventative. I agree with Roland that once the roots are in the
drain, it would probably take a lot more than copper sulfate to remove
the roots, at least for the kinds of trees that block my pipes!

Marc


We must have unbelievably stubborn roots. We have tried everything
mentioned in all of these posts except for replacing the actual sewer line.
After having the sewer line snaked out, we had a plumbing contractor put
Root-X in the drains. It was quite expensive and has to be done by a
plumbing company. It goes in the pipe on the roof. It is a 2 part dry
mixture of something and then water is poured down the pipe after the dry
mix is put in. It is supposed to foam up and totally coat the drain pipes.
The idea is that it 'coats' the inside of the pipe and inhibits the future
growth of roots with some sort of chemical. It has a one year guarantee.
Ours lasted 10 months, then after reapplying - 8 months and finally the last
time it only kept the drain unclogged for 7 months. The contractor who was
doing the applications of Root-X kept saying that the blockage had to be
something other than roots as Root-X was SO effective. This is the company
that last ran the camera down the sewer line so they knew that there was no
structural damage to the pipes. Each time they snaked out the pipe, they
came up with roots. They finally told us that they would not have us as
customers any more as it was costing them a lot to keep putting the stuff in
when it was not lasting as long as it was supposed to.

Actually, we were tired of this treatment anyway. It didn't work any better
than just having the pipes snaked out a couple of times a year. Also, the
last guy who put the stuff in the pipe in the roof apparently was not very
familiar with how to apply the Root-X. Instead of the product foaming
downward to the sewer pipes, a lot of the foaming junk poured out the top
the pipe on the roof. It flowed down the roof, into the gutter and down the
downspout. The stuff is toxic as it is made to kill the roots. This cr*p
flowed out the downspout all over our back yard and killed the grass
totally. It was a mess and was not worth the trouble.

After the last time of having our line snaked out, we decided to try the
copper sulfate or whatever it is that you can buy in hardware stores to kill
roots. It said to use it twice a year. We put it in every other month to
try to keep the lines open. After 6 months, our line clogged up with roots.
The last snaking out was about 3 weeks ago. We are at the end of idea as to
what to try to 'chemically' keep the roots from growing. There doesn't seem
to be much left to try. We just keep the plumber's number close by so we
can call for another snake job.