From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: pdaxs.services.plumbing,alt.building.construction,misc.rural,
	misc.consumers.frugal-living,alt.survival
Subject: Re: Repairing a broken drain line
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 16:57:58 -0400
Message-ID: <cg5re3hqjhf2nf5vp712l7iqs14vbai5e4@4ax.com>

Ugghhh, too much work and potentially harmful to a septic tank.

The Popular Mechanics Home Handyman book series that my folks got me back in the 60s
has a solution that works very well, requires practically no work, is dirt-cheap and
is septic tank friendly.

Get a piece of cheese cloth perhaps 18" square, three wood dowels or something
similar about a yard long, a pound of calcium chloride (concrete antifreeze) and a
pound of copper sulfate (garden supplies).  Copper is death on roots even in small
quantities.  If your area has high humidity, use more copper sulfate and less calcium
chloride.

Mix the two chemicals, put the mix on the cheese cloth, pick up the corners and make
a hobo-pack-style bundle.  Tie some string around the top.  Use some string to bind
the tops of the three sticks together and spread out the other ends to make a small
tripod.  Tie the bag of chemicals to the sticks so that it hangs down in the center.
Position this assembly over a floor drain or other opening that drains to the sewer.

Calcium chloride is highly hygroscopic.  It will attract enough water from the air to
liquefy itself and the copper sulfate, forming a saturated solution.  The solution
will drip from the bag, a drop every few hours, and enter the drain where the copper
will nuke the tree roots.

How well this works is illustrated by my cabin here.  There's a huge hickory tree,
perhaps 75 ft tall, growing directly over my field line.  Been there for 40+ years.
Never even a hint of root problems or septic system problems.  I started doing this
treatment shortly after we built the place back in the early 70s.  It's so humid here
that I use about a 1:3 mix of CaCl to CuSO4.

John

On Sun, 16 Sep 2007 11:09:04 -0700, "hallerb@aol.com" <hallerb@aol.com> wrote:

>are the roots the real problem?
>
>if so quick CHEAP SOLUTION:)
>
>As long as you look at the roots as a maintence issue.
>
>if once roto rooted is line ok for awhile??
>
>just dump rock salt soution down sink or whatever feeds the effected
>line about every 3 months. it will not effect the tree bushes or
>whatever but will kill the roots. the most common time for root growth
>is early spring. the trees are getting ready for leaf growth and go
>into over drive underground.
>
>I dump a 25 pund bag into my basement washtub every few months and mix
>wih hot water.
>
>it really works long term been over 10 years. just mix salt with hot
>water till most dissolves, then go out fpor day so root salt exposure
>is maximized.
>
>25 pounds of rock salt about 3 bucks, a little more for softner salt.
>
>let me know this works.
>
>quick easy cheap solution