I'm not saying laterals have no nutrients, but the concentration and type of nutrients are very different between laterals and septic tanks.

Sewage in laterals is pretty dilute. Septic tanks (the tank, not the drain fields) are where the solids collect. They break down a bit over time and particulate forms of nutrients become soluble and more easily taken up by plants.

The sewage in the fields is also generally more strong than sewage that goes to municipal or shared systems because it's passing though the tank and taking up some of those newly solubilized nutrients on the way to the field.

The tree is absolutely going to get less water when it's repaired, but I'd be doubtful that the nutrient level will change all that much.

Yeah, I’ve had that same thought. About 30 linear feet of 6” pipe chock full of tree roots tells me it’s been feeding on that buffet for a little while. That said we live in an area where trees do really well anyways, there’s another tree about 20 feet away that’s also does fantastic and it’s not even close to anything as great as a sewer pipe so I do have hope that after a year or two it will bounce back, but it looks like we will end up cutting around 1/4 to 1/3 of its roots out. Luckily the house blocks the predominant wind and the hill slopes away from the house so worst case it shouldn’t be a risk to the house.

Seconding this. While a mature tree is worth something, Norway maples are generally miserable alternatives to a native maple. There certainly are worse trees but so many nicer ones. Their only benefit is they’re hardy, like a Norway rat.

Thanks! TIL and have a rabbit hole to dive down. This one at least has not pushed out anything native at least since it’s in a yard in a suburb, and the wooded areas around us are chock full of native trees.

It also seems to be at least tolerated by the birds and such around us, we regularly see nests in it every year and the birds are always flitting around it. We offer quality bird feed as well to keep our cardinals and titmouses (titmice?) happy year round. But if it dies and needs replaced we will for sure look at native options.

From an arborist perspective, usually limiting the trenching to 30% of the root zone (a radius based on the drip line of the tree) will leave keep the tree alive, but it's still a gamble.

The 30% will include the arc of the circle it cuts off, and if the tree is large enough that it could fall on a house, it's not worth the risk.

CIPP was the original plan for the entire run until they got into it. The existing pipe doesn’t have the right fall over the run, being flat in a few places with it seeming as though it rises in at least one spot. They were able to clear the roots from 85% of the line with one area towards the very end giving them the most trouble.

While I have issues with our contractor, the scope of work isn’t really one of them. They are using CIPP for the last few feet to the city main tap, and for the section under the steps to avoid needing to dig that up, as well is along the interior portion before the trap where it is clear 4” cast iron. The only trenchless option we might have in this case is pipe bursting and I’ve not seen anyone in our area that really does that, and it would mean pulling a new 6” pipe which we don’t really. I appreciate the opinion but in this case trenching is really the right option unfortunately for the job being done.

I’ve seen 3x the drip edge but that’s a pretty similar area. This is under the drip edge so not a great spot.

Im just happy we caught the issue before it was really bad. A little backup in the basement let us find a partially collapsed cast iron house trap (which is what was originally dug up, that’s the pile of dirt in the picture) and a lateral that was so full of roots I’m surprised we didn’t have bigger problems. Luckily our HO policy includes service line coverage so at the end of the day if we can keep the tree it’s really not that bad.

Thanks, they are not using a trencher but rather an excavator so I’m sure it won’t be clean cuts of the larger roots. I’ll have to ask them to cleanly cut what they can as they work. We don’t have the luxury working any further out though since the lateral is where it is.

I can certainly ask