Comments on: Dear PoP – My Neighbor’s Adult Son Killed a Tree, What Do I Do Now?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 15:15:33 +0000

There’s some kind of cool rolly tool that has a round wire ball at the end that picks up acorns. I saw it on Ask This Old House.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 15:07:37 +0000

Anything that requires police action should be directed to 911. It’s posted on the DC Web site somewhere.

By: Veronika

Veronika — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 20:54:39 +0000

are you scared of said neighbor’s son? it sounds like it. report the murderer and own it.

By: Justine

Justine — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 21:38:19 +0000

If you have a good relatonship with your neighbors, it’s best to mind your business. I have some Central American neighbors that live in an overcrowded apartment. Their living habits are different from mine because I am a very clean and neat person. I only speak to them and smile in passing because I don’t want to complain on them to the landlord. I have to stay here and the landlord lives in his million dollar home in Annapolis, Maryland.

By: Laura

Laura — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 18:24:55 +0000

This was my favorite comment by far.

By: Warder St.

Warder St. — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:30:38 +0000

As for sewer and plumbing lines – supply lines in the city are either lead, copper, or plastic, and are generally unaffected by tree roots. The roots cannot penetrate them, but they can be ripped up if the tree is uprooted during a storm. The sewer lines from your home to the city sewer main can discharge from the front or rear of the home. Sewer lines are either cast iron, terra cotta, or plastic. Typically in older homes they are cast iron until the exit the building line and then convert to terra cotta in your yard. Tree roots can infiltrate at the joints in cast iron and terra cotta. Since sewer lines are not subjected to the water pressure of supply lines, the joints between the sections of pipe can have breaks and gaps and the lines will still function. These gaps allow roots to infiltrate. As the roots continue to grow in the sewer lines they create essentially a mesh of fine roots that catch paper and solids in the pipe causing a blockage necessitating your sewer line to be rodded out. Since the sewer line is a ready source of water for the tree it is inevitable the roots will grow back and block the line again. This will be constant maintenance issue for you. There are a few options; one is to replace the sewer line with plastic. Two is to dig up a section of the sewer line in the yard and install an easily accessible clean-out to allow quick and easy access to the line for rodding (this is required in new construction). Third, there are some root kill additives that can be poured down the toilet in your home that foam up inside the sewer and claim to kill the roots, again this would be a maintenance item, but even a $20 bottle every few months is way cheaper than a $200 power rod expense. Finally, you can move.

If you want a tree in your yard plant one. There are trees species that don’t grow too tall and there are tree species whose roots don’t grow too deep. If trees were unworkable in this environment, every home in the city with a tree would be knee deep in sewage.

I have replaced many clogged sewer lines. The bottle of root kill is the cheapest and easiest, but it requires diligence.

By: k-go

k-go — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 12:47:45 +0000

Anonymous said, “where are lead lines still left? is there a map anywhere? the city pulled out my lead lines almost 8 years ago.”

The lead pipe to the house I just bought in Petworth is still there. And according to the information provided byt DC Water & Sewer it has yet to be completed or scheduled. I’m responsible for the private portion of the pipe, so I’m going to wait until the city replaces the public section to have it done. Thank god for brita!

Here’s the link to the planned and completed lead pipe replacement program.

http://www.dcwater.com/lead/scheduled_replacements.cfm

By: k-go

k-go — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 12:33:56 +0000

By: Vinnie

Vinnie — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 03:17:54 +0000

@Anon; my grammar is fine. I didn’t realize, this is an English class. It’s just a blog! Every year during these horrific storms, trees fall down on power lines or homes. I guess, planting trees is a white thing?

By: Dr Pangloss

Dr Pangloss — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 22:08:06 +0000

Is the difference between our dysfunction and, say, McLean’s that we have DDOT’s Urban Forestry department handling this nonsense, and McLean’s got an HOA?

The suburb I grew up in sucked, but it didn’t have an HOA, and for all their faults, most of the men were like Mike Meyers’ “Middle-Age Man”. There weren’t mass numbers of folks aggressively contributing to the shittiness of the shared environment.