I wonder how many of the pipes are made of wood. I forget the source, but I heard a decent number of pipes in Montreal are very old and made of wood (which is better than the proliferation of lead pipes that are still being removed)
Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes
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Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes
#62Not only trees in cities do that. A lot of clogged home sewers are caused by trees that wanted more to drink. Once the sewer line is fully blocked, they've arrived in paradise. Now there is a constant supply in the permanently filled sewer line.
Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes
#63The city where I live estimates that we lose somewhere between 25% and 30% of drinkable water to leaky infrastructure. We've had something close to a drought this summer -- unseasonally long periods without rain. You can see the young trees on the streets and trees in the middle of large parks suffer from it - wilted leaves and leaves dropping earlier than usual. BUT, large old trees seem to be thriving - full canopi…
That’s really high. There’s either a big problem in your city, or they are making generous estimates to justify asking for more capital. 10-15% is more typical. In my region, the street trees are usually getting sewer water. Residential service in older houses are usually clay pipes with lead solder that the tree infiltrates. It’s not a problem until the clay pops and roots clog it. It varies a lot by region and juri…
Mexico City, by some estimates loses about 40% of its water that does enter its system, whether it's through leaky pipes or being stolen.
https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/05/27/mexico-city-wat...
Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes
#64Or if you're a willow tree you make a leaky pipe.
We had a lemon tree that did this. The irrigation line connector was probably not 100% sealed and the roots grew to it slowly broke it. It enabled the lemon tree to gets lots of water and grow. Meanwhile the trees further down the irrigation line suffered.
Our pines had fun with our sewage back in the day...
Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes
#65Not only trees in cities do that. A lot of clogged home sewers are caused by trees that wanted more to drink. Once the sewer line is fully blocked, they've arrived in paradise. Now there is a constant supply in the permanently filled sewer line.
Or at least, constant supply for the several hours it will take to call a rooter company and clear the drain line. Ironically, the tree would have better results if it only partly blocked the drain. I wonder if trees might ever evolve to strike that kind of balance, or if there's not enough selection pressure for that to happen.
Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heh. Yesterday, we had a plumber over who told us we have to rebore our sewage pipes because roots got in. It is an old house with cast iron pipes and they still got in.
I've never heard it called "reboring" - wonder if there is a different procedure for when it gets really bad, but I'd have thought problems (backup) would happen pretty quickly, so wouldn't be too bad as long as you take care of it. They basically use something like a weed whacker fed down the pipe, except it uses a short bit of chain instead of trimmer line, and will pulverise any intruding roots.
There are at least two techniques: sewer rooting (low velocity and high torque) and sewer de-scaling (opposite).
Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes
#67I wonder how much human health is impacted by these leaky pipes. I would like to see a city where pipes are guaranteed leak free, for example by making them double walled with high pressure air in the outer layer, and then seeing if disease levels in the city are lower.
Water pipes are under pressure. So outside water and pollutants do not infiltrate into leaky pipes. Unless you have a water shutoff. But those situations are minimal.
City department of water and power was doing some unrelated sewer work but ran into a problem, and shut off water in my neighborhood. No alert to warn of the shutoff, or an alert when it came back on. I found out because I worked from home and noticed the tap wasn’t working and went out to ask the workers on the road if they shut the water off. Chances are virtually the entire neighborhood besides myself and another curious local pedestrian did not flush their taps after that loss of pressure no doubt induced contamination (most of the housing stock is 100 years old so runs into homes are probably in terrible shape).
Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes
#68I wonder how much human health is impacted by these leaky pipes. I would like to see a city where pipes are guaranteed leak free, for example by making them double walled with high pressure air in the outer layer, and then seeing if disease levels in the city are lower.
> I wonder how much human health is impacted by these leaky pipes. Not much, because the water mains pressure keeps nasty things from entering the pipe. However, when the system is depressurized due to a power outage or due to running out of water, nasty things can happen (stuff entering the water pipes, oxygen from air bubbles causing rust), and that's why after such events boil-off orders are issued for a few weeks…
No warning went out when they shut my water off most recently. Certainly no boil off advisory.
Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes
#69Not only trees in cities do that. A lot of clogged home sewers are caused by trees that wanted more to drink. Once the sewer line is fully blocked, they've arrived in paradise. Now there is a constant supply in the permanently filled sewer line.
Or at least, constant supply for the several hours it will take to call a rooter company and clear the drain line. Ironically, the tree would have better results if it only partly blocked the drain. I wonder if trees might ever evolve to strike that kind of balance, or if there's not enough selection pressure for that to happen.
Watch out, some tree roots may be stronger than the rooter used to clear them, in which case the rooter company may end up with a rooter trapped in your pipe, as happened to my parents. Ultimately they had to get the sewer line excavated and replaced where it met the city sewer, 15 feet down in the middle of the road. Cost like $30k.
Maybe ask the rooter company what happens if they end up with equipment trapped jammed down your pipe is all I'm saying.
Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or at least, constant supply for the several hours it will take to call a rooter company and clear the drain line. Ironically, the tree would have better results if it only partly blocked the drain. I wonder if trees might ever evolve to strike that kind of balance, or if there's not enough selection pressure for that to happen.
Watch out, some tree roots may be stronger than the rooter used to clear them, in which case the rooter company may end up with a rooter trapped in your pipe, as happened to my parents. Ultimately they had to get the sewer line excavated and replaced where it met the city sewer, 15 feet down in the middle of the road. Cost like $30k. Maybe ask the rooter company what happens if they end up with equipment trapped jamm…
That to me seems like something that should be covered by the company's insurance.
Any services company that comes out, ens up with breaking their tools because they used inadequate tooling, and causing more damage? I don't know how they managed to foist that on to your parents.
The issue wasn't the tree roots, it was the rooter company's poor investigation. Video scoping a sewer line is trivial these days.