root removal with copper sulfate

[Doug Lassiter]

We have a drain line, just under a toilet, that is regularly invaded by roots. We've started using copper sulfate (e.g. Zep Root Kill). Now, the instructions don't make a lot of sense. We're supposed to put half a pound at a time in the toilet, and flush. Now, if you flush half a pound of copper sulfate crystals, most of what goes down the drain is undissolved crystals, and what does get dissolved is hugely diluted by the toilet reservoir. The crystals don't completely dissolve until they're way way down the drain. So what the roots nearby see is a weak and highly diluted solution of copper sulfate. As a result, in cleaning out the drain near you, you're wasting a lot of copper sulfate. What would make more sense would be to empty the bowl manually, and pour in a half pound of completely dissolved crystals, and then sweep that liquid into the drain.

Am I missing something?

 

[Twowaxhack]

Replace the pipe or cutting the trees if possible is the answer.

Maintain with a quality sewer machine capable of cutting roots.

The pipe has a hole in it or damaged joints.

There are very few solutions that are sold in a bottle.

 

[Doug Lassiter]

That didn't answer my question. People say that copper sulfate works. My point is that the instructions don't seem to be the way to make it work best. BTW, a quality sewer machine to clear out roots invading below the toilet requires removing the toilet. No fun.

 

[Twowaxhack]

That didn't answer my question. People say that copper sulfate works. My point is that the instructions don't seem to be the way to make it work best. BTW, a quality sewer machine to clear out roots invading below the toilet requires removing the toilet. No fun.

The only question you asked is “ what am I missing “

I told you what you’re missing.

Use the copper sulfate how ever you’d like.

Most people follow the directions or they don’t……

 

[Twowaxhack]

The good thing about forums is that someone will eventually come along and tell you exactly what you want to hear.

So check back shortly.

 

[Doug Lassiter]

Well, I'd like to have someone answer with ome experience about using copper sulfate for root mitigation. Haven't heard that yet.

 

[RS]

Maybe if you dissolved the copper sulfate in water and then poured it down the toilet, or put it in the toilet tank and then wait until it's dissolved to flush it. I have successfully used it to reduce weed growth in a pond, it worked well for that. I recently bought some and spread it above a drain tile that was plugging with roots, time will tell if it works.

 

[Bird Doo Head]

Hello Doug & Others!

Copper sulfate works great if done properly.
We had a root problem from either one neighbor's elm tree (likely) or the other neighbor's maple trees galore. (Unlikely- Maple roots grow shallow.) We're on clay, so the trees must search for water. Sewers are a good source.

Our sewer would clog, so I'd have to snake it every 3 - 4 weeks in summer & winter and once in fall & spring. Each time, lots roots came back on the cutter.

First Treatment:
I started by snaking three passes- until no ore roots returned on the cutter. Then I waited one week for root hairs to arrive in the pipe.
Next, I put two tablespoons of 97% pure copper sulfate crystals in a workshop sink filled with about 3 gallons of water. I let the water drain as quickly as possible by removing the stopper. (A washing machine stand pipe is a good candidate for a fast drain.) We want the crystals to wash down quickly with about 3 gallons of water so that they are suspended and will cling to the root hairs.

Results:
I repeat the two tablespoons treatment every 6 - 8 weeks and I have not snaked in several years. The trees are healthy and brilliant.

Hints:
A) Snake first, then wait about a week for hairs to return to the pipe. Copper sulfate won't eat the big roots, it simply clings to the root hairs, shrivels them & makes them die back away from the pipes so they fall off, to be washed away.
When I was young and worked for a plumbing company, we'd do replacements and find that the roots were dead 8 or 10 feet from the pipe.

B) You don't need a lot of crystals. Commercial root-killo products are either diluted crystals or they are are simply up-selling. It can be hard on this earth, so use as little as possible.

C) Do this treatment when water won't be used for several hours. Evening before everyone retires for the day is a good time, as is morning when everyone leaves for the day. It won't harm the pipes. (Actually, any galvanized or cast iron pipe will eventually develp a copper coating inside.)

D) Keep the extra crystals dry or they will absorb moisture from the air & clump up. Put them in a zip-to-close bag and put the bag in a tightly sealed jar or paint can.

A Good Copper Sulfate Source:
Mindy Materials sells copper sulfate crystals that are 99 or more percent pure. They are far less expensive than the 40% crystals I saw in a home/hardware store. When last I bought, it was about $15.00 for 5 lbs (more than a lifetime supply for root killing). There are many other laboratory supply houses that also sell it & may be even cheaper.

Why We Did Not (Yet) Fix This:
Our building drain & sewer are clay tile and are under the driveway; therefore replacing or lining the clay pipes is something that will wait until it must be done- most likely when the pipe shifts or the snake hangs up.
Moving it is equally challenging, as there would be counters & machine tools to move, plus 20 feet of basement to saw-cut. Once outside, there is a concrete porch 4 feet tall & 8 feet wide to go under.

What To Do With All The Extra Copper Sulfate:
Although it should be used with discretion due to its potential to damage the ground water and fish killing ability, copper sulfate has many more uses. Keep it away from bird baths. It will kill the beneficial, pollinating insects that drink there.

Mix some in water until it is a saturated solution. Squirt it in pavement joints & cracks on a dry day. Nothing will grow there for years.

Mixed properly, it is a good nutrient for vegetable & flower plants. It'll also kill insects that eat the leaves. But be SURE to mix properly. It also kills plants if it's too concentrated.

Mix a saturated solution (Saturated Solution = No more will dissolve). Spray it on wood. The wood will not rot and will not grow fungus.

On the roof, it will kill algae & moss. On pavers, too. (But it can stain the light colored concrete & clay products blue.) My neighbor's maple trees are huge & shade two of my roofs. Algae & moss were eating my shingles. I shot them with copper sulfate. In a few days, the growth was dead & I gently swept it off. Next, I put a strip of bare copper wire on the roof, from gable to gable, just under the ridge shingles. No more moss or algae has grown for many years.

Squirt a very little around the root zone of impossible to kill plants, such as poison ivy and evil grape vines. They'll die. But, nothing will grow there for years. (Shoving a piece of copper wire in the dirt at the plant's stem will do the same thing.)
I killed grape vines that kept returning- even after digging up the roots. (Grapes are very, very toxic to dogs, so the vines had to go.)


For Fun:
In a jar mix copper sulfate crystals in hot water to become a saturated solution. (Saturated Solution = No more will dissolve).

Hook a wire to the positive terminal of a 9 volt battery and to a piece of clean, un-coated metal, like a screw or nail. (Flat strip works well, too) Put that metal in the water.

Clean a quarter thoroughly, removing all oils.

Hook a wire to the negative battery terminal. Hook the negative wire to the quarter with an alligator clip. Stick that in the jar as far from the other metal as possible. Try to keep the alligator clip out of the water.

In a half-hour or so, the quarter will be copper plated & dull. Shine it up & it'll look brilliant.
My truck key & car key look the same. I did this to the truck key. No no more grabbing the wrong key.

I hope your root killing goes well and you can stay clog-free until you can replace or line the piping.

Paul

 

[wpns]

Hey Paul,

I've got some sump pumps that sit out in a swamp all year till hurricane/rainy season and tend to get clogged with roots, would you dose the sumps with copper sulfate crystals or just put some heavy gauge bare copper wire in the bottom of the sumps? Or both?

Thanks!

 

[Mitchell-DIY-Guy]

Replace the pipe or cutting the trees if possible is the answer.

Maintain with a quality sewer machine capable of cutting roots.

The pipe has a hole in it or damaged joints.

There are very few solutions that are sold in a bottle.

Yes that's it.
One thing I see so little of around here at least (but I did see a LOT of it in Michigan) is directional boring. It can be done for plumbing or electricity.

I had to have new buried electrical service delivered to a large pad mount transformer in the back of my car wash. Detroit Edison gave me a site plan with the trenching requirements. Like some people note here about landscaping, driveways, walkways, etc. It would have cost a small fortune to do the trenching, and a large fortune to repair the concrete. I remembered seeing these directional boring guys all over the place, so I called them. They dug just two holes: at the pad location, and at the power pole. They used their boring machine and ran two 3" conduits. Total cost was maybe $1,700. Absolutely no destruction of concrete or driveways. All underground. Quick, easy, and efficient.

 

[Twowaxhack]

When DIY and some pros “ clean “ roots, they often leave many roots behind. They often use equipment not designed to clean roots.

That’s why they claim it doesn’t work or they have to repeat the process once a month, Etc, Etc.

I enjoy reading these responses and comparing it to my everyday work.

 

[Bird Doo Head]

What Mitchell-DIY-Guy said about directional boring is a really good plan if you can do the whole job outside. Inside, you'll have to break the floor for the end hole. Unfortunately, my house will still need much concrete broken. As I write this, a contractor for AT&T is outside directional boring from a pit on my front lawn. The other end is more than half a mile away.

I've used directional boring in Detroit & in many states, for installing/replacing miles of both high voltage cables and conduit, as well as parking lot lighting & stuff. New PVC pulls through like a dream- even 6" schedule 80. Sometimes the bore will bounce off a rock or root and get mis-directed, but the boring guys cope well. (The company for which I worked owned machines, so sometimes I was the driver for "easy" jobs. Once, when I was driving, the end popped up in a busy mile road. Screech! Beep! Crash! Oops.)

Spray lining is also a good option if the clay tiles aren't misaligned yet. Once cured, the new liner is as solid & rigid as schedule 40. I've used it on large underground conduits & concrete electrical ducts. It's more popular in Ontario than Michigan, so if you live near Ontario, lots of those companies work on the U. S. side.

I don't know if sleeve lining is good or not. the plumbers here will know for certain.

Hey Paul,

I've got some sump pumps that sit out in a swamp all year till hurricane/rainy season and tend to get clogged with roots, would you dose the sumps with copper sulfate crystals or just put some heavy gauge bare copper wire in the bottom of the sumps? Or both?

Thanks!

A concern about using copper sulfae in the swamp is what will happen to the aquatic wildlife and native plants in the swamp. Also consider the birds who eat the copper laced insects.
It also might be illegal. A landscape company I knew would treat wealthy neighborhoods' ponds with copper sulfate. The company owners went to prison.


If the pumps are in basins, or can go in basins, a permeable barrier made of copper would work. Even if they can be surrounded with dry-stacked cinder blocks, the below will work without doing much damage to the swamp & its residents:

Cover the basins inside with uncoated copper hardware cloth or copper mesh. The mesh will provide a mechanical barrier and leech copper into the roots, but it is more prone to clogging than the hardware cloth. Maybe wrap the pits' outsides with landscape cloth, too.

Watch that you buy pure copper, not copper plated steel. It won't last. Also, be sure it is not coated. Many are lacquered.
And, I'd be sure to check into the legality & environmental consequences of any copper in a swamp.

I've used both screen & mesh on underground high voltage splice vaults. They are usually concrete and often have an ejector pump in the bottom. Roots would invade through the joints, manhole cover seam & ladder bolts.
Mesh was preferred, but in your situation you want the water to enter the pit, so maybe hardware cloth is a better plan. The only downside was that the water in the bottom of the vaults ended up blue. My boots sure got stained!

 

[Doug Lassiter]

Well, directional boring is a different subject. But thank you for the suggestions about copper sulfate. It's not going into a swamp. It's going into a sewer system, and the administrator don't seem to have any trouble with that. I take it that pre-dissolved copper sulfate is best, and I like the idea of flushing a few tablespoonfuls of dissolved copper sulfate often, rather than chugging the drain with a load of crystals every year or so. The roots are coming in immediately under the toilet, so that toilet is where the stuff needs to come in.

Now, the idea of crystals clinging to root hairs doesn't sound right, unless the clog is nearly total. You flush crystals down the drain, and most of the crystals will speed right past the roots. But I am assuming that if dissolved copper sulfate hits the roots, it'll kill them, right? How concentrated does it need to be to do so? Two tablespoons in three gallons of water sounds pretty dilute.

Certainly true that when you flush the copper sulfate, don't use the toilet for a while. You don't want to hose the stuff off the roots once you've coated them with it.

BTW, I'm not connecting to Mindy Materials with https://mindymaterials.com/. Is there a better website for them? Oh, I guess I can get to them on e-Bay. But their price for copper sulfate is indeed better than Zep.

 

[Bird Doo Head]

From Doug Lassiter:

"Now, the idea of crystals clinging to root hairs doesn't sound right, unless the clog is nearly total."
Beats Me exactly how the copper gets to the roots, but I went from snaking every 3 - 4 weeks to snaking every never with 6 - 8 week treatment. Another person I know has had the same success with the same treatment & same material (99% pure).

My S.W.A.G. is it's because the roots go to the bottom of the pipe where water is usually present & drink up the magic elixir. I know the roots go to the bottom of the pipe from digging up others' building drains & sewers when I was working in the field many decades ago. There was usually a mat of roots, paper & general effluent laying there.


"But I am assuming that if dissolved copper sulfate hits the roots, it'll kill them, right? How concentrated does it need to be to do so?"
Don't mix it for sewer/drain root kill.
I put 2 tablespoons of crystals into the drain outlet of the sink, add 3 gallons of water to the sink & let the water drain as quickly as possible. Because the copper sulfate pieces are still crystals, they get stuck in the root nest for longer-term poisoning. There's less chance of washing away crystals than liquid.

An old plumber friend once told me in the 1920's & 30's they used to flush pieces of a copper scrub pad (Like a Chore Boy) that's been chopped up into tiny bits. (I'm lazy. I go for the copper sulfate.)

Remember that Copper sulfate won't eat an existing clog. The pipe has to be snaked of large roots first & that some roots have to return before treatment. Some roots can stay behind. It will cause the new, thirsty roots to die back, shrivel & fall off- to be washed away. They will continue to die back far from the pipe. (Please don't use chemical drain cleaners. If it does not work & a plumber has to snake the line, the chemical can be dangerous for the plumber.)

"How concentrated does it need to be to do so? Two tablespoons in three gallons of water sounds pretty dilute."
Two tablespoons of undissolved crystals in a 3 gallon sink dump works for me. I've also dumped the 2 tablespoons in a toilet & flushed, but the shop sink is more convenient. It has a 1-1/2"" outlet & 2" trap draining into 4" C.I. pipe. The water exits fast.
Remember we're using 99% pure, not a lower percentage as is found in many store-shelf root kill. Maybe that's why 2 tablespoons works.

For non-drain work, like killing pavement crack weeds, what is called a "saturated solution" is best. That means to mix the crystals in water until no more will dissolve.

"BTW, I'm not connecting to Mindy Materials"
I just tried that site as well. The page says that it is Under Maintenance. If you aren't comfortable with eBay, Mindy Material's phone number is (910) 884-7356. They are on Facebook, too.

Hope This Helps!
Paul

 

[hukre]

Sale and use of copper sulfate is outlawed in several California counties.

 

[Doug Lassiter]

My S.W.A.G. is it's because the roots go to the bottom of the pipe where water is usually present & drink up the magic elixir. I know the roots go to the bottom of the pipe from digging up others' building drains & sewers when I was working in the field many decades ago. There was usually a mat of roots, paper & general effluent laying there.

When we pulled the toilet and got rid of the big root clog, the roots were massed just below the floor. Well above the bottom of any pipe.

"How concentrated does it need to be to do so? Two tablespoons in three gallons of water sounds pretty dilute."
Two tablespoons of undissolved crystals in a 3 gallon sink dump works for me. I've also dumped the 2 tablespoons in a toilet & flushed, but the shop sink is more convenient. It has a 1-1/2"" outlet & 2" trap draining into 4" C.I. pipe. The water exits fast.
Remember we're using 99% pure, not a lower percentage as is found in many store-shelf root kill. Maybe that's why 2 tablespoons works.

OK, so the recipe for root prevention below a toilet is 3-4 tablespoons of copper sulfate in a 6 gallon toilet reservoir once a month or two. Yes? Again, I'm skeptical about the value of undissolved crystals (in that they'll just get flushed past the roots before they can do any good) so I'll dissolve them first. Well, OK, if there is actually a root mass that can catch the crystals, I'll throw in another tablespoon or two undissolved.

"BTW, I'm not connecting to Mindy Materials"
I just tried that site as well. The page says that it is Under Maintenance. If you aren't comfortable with eBay, Mindy Material's phone number is (910) 884-7356. They are on Facebook, too.

I put in an order from eBay. We'll see if it comes through.

BTW, I think copper sulfate is banned in half a dozen California counties. I believe it was banned briefly in Florida, but that ban was rescinded. I don't live in either place.

 

[wpns]

I've used both screen & mesh on underground high voltage splice vaults. They are usually concrete and often have an ejector pump in the bottom. Roots would invade through the joints, manhole cover seam & ladder bolts.

That's pretty much the situation I'm in, would copper pipe scraps in the bottom of the sump work, or do I need to line the inside of the sump with something with a pretty small mesh? I'm seeing a lot of options at for instance: Copper Wire Mesh & Screens - TWP Inc. which is the better choice? Many Thanks!

 

[Twowaxhack]

That's pretty much the situation I'm in, would copper pipe scraps in the bottom of the sump work, or do I need to line the inside of the sump with something with a pretty small mesh? I'm seeing a lot of options at for instance: Copper Wire Mesh & Screens - TWP Inc. which is the better choice? Many Thanks!

I can assure you that copper pipe scraps are not going to stop roots.

I have first hand knowledge that will not work.

I’ve had roots grow into the bottoms of my scrap copper buckets……

 

[wpns]

I’ve had roots grow into the bottoms of my scrap copper buckets

Good to know! Any thoughts on mesh size as per the TWP link above?

 

[Bird Doo Head]

From Doug Lassiter:
"OK, so the recipe for root prevention below a toilet is 3-4 tablespoons of copper sulfate in a 6 gallon toilet reservoir once a month or two. Yes?"
In toilets, I put the crystals in the Bowl. I don't think in the water tank that they'd all flush down. Plus, I haven't any idea if the copper will damage anything. (For instance, clinging to the flapper & allowing leaks)

"Again, I'm skeptical about the value of undissolved crystals (in that they'll just get flushed past the roots before they can do any good) so I'll dissolve them first."
If the crystals are dissolved, they surely will flow past the roots. In crystalline form, most of them get stuck on the roots where the poisonous-to-plants copper has time to be up-taken by capillary action.

Visualize Or Try This:
Take a glass of water and mix sugar in it until the sugar is dissolved. Pour it through steel wool. Take another glass of water and dump the sugar in the water & only swirl the water. Pour it through steel wool.
Let the steel wool drip-dry. You'll see sugar on one, but not the other.
If you want to be Super Science Guy, put each steel wool in a new glass of water & insert a brix meter. One will show minimal sugar. One will show a lot.
The dissolved sugar sailed right past the wool, with only a bit remaining. The crystal sugar got stuck in the steel wool- steel wool representing a root mass. We want the copper sulfate to cling to the roots.

Try This:
Mix copper sulfate in a tall glass of water until it is dissolved. Put copper sulfate in another and only swirl it around. Take two celery stalks & shred the ends a bit so that there are hairs on the bottom. Place the celery stalk in the glasses & give a quick swirl around the glass so the hairs drag in the crystals. Lift the stalks off of the bottom pile of undissolved crystals, leaving the ones that clung on the stalk. (Hold them up with toothpicks)
In an hour, look at the celery stalks. The one where the copper sulfate was dissolved will look like celery. The one that had crystals will have very dark green & bright blue streaks going up the stalk toward the top. The streaks are copper.
After reading your post, I thought of and tried this. It sure enough worked.

Thanks for your post about roots in the scrap bucket, TwoWaxHack.
That's really interesting. I've used copper scraps shoved in the ground next to plants. They die, as to the roots. I wonder why it won't work in a bucket. Fun With Science!