Tree root is damaging the walkway

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com (Person Person) in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

i can't imagine how. i'd take it out asap.

It is

migth have to relevel (pump sand or grout under slab/s) and maybe seal the slab/s. i'm not a contr, but i think they'd be in the "foundatoins" listing in yellow pages.

get moe info on other ngs, home.repair, etc

Just fix the sidewalk - we do this all the time. Trees are usually the wrong species for the site when this sort of thing occurs.

Repair the walk, perhaps build the repaired section on a special mix (structural soil) that is used for trees under pavement. Reset the fence. Crack sin the slab at the garage may be from settling as well as roots of trees.

Everything is a tradeoff.

"Mike LaMana" in news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

how many years later have you observed results?

how often and extensively (percentage of perimeter, depth, distance, approximate!) have you done this?

if anything :-)

Crack sin the slab at the garage may be from settling as well

true. we haven't seen the situation. if the tree is within ten feet of the cracking region, i'd suspect the tree!

There are protocols for adding soil to mature trees to accommodate the changes in grade. The results vary with the species of tree, root morphology, texture and chemistry of existing soil, etc. It can be done on the entirety of the tree critical root-zone, but if grade change is dramatic other technologies beside structural soils need to be used.

If done properly success rates are near 100%. Some projects I have seen 3-6 years later are doing fine.

You can cut out the roots doing the damage, but that may (or may not) kill the tree, which will then have to be cut down before it falls down. I'd say a monster tree that's wrecking your infrastructure should be removed ASAP. It's not going to stop on its own, and repairing present damage will not prevent future problems.

I am very interested in this option, thank you for letting me know. I guess we will have to call an arborist to evaluate our situation - would an arborist know about those protocols you have mentioned? So we'll have to compare the cost of re-paving with the cost of taking the tree down. It's an OK tree, quite messy actually, constantly dropping leaves, but it does provide shade and privacy, I would prefer to save it if we can. The grade change is NOT dramatic, but enough to crack a concrete slab all the way through, and get two parts of the fence completely mis-aligned. Thank you, MY

Alternatives to pavement repair involve the initial use of, or replacement with, other paving materials. One alternative is landscape pavers, porous concrete pavers that can also be used for parking lot surfaces instead of solid asphalt or concrete. A second alternative, still being developed in California, is the use of rubber sidewalks. Rubber sidewalks, made from compressed, recycled crumb rubber (mainly from recycled tires) provide malleable paving surfaces that give way to invasive tree roots. Rubber sidewalks are cost-effective and aesthetically acceptable alternatives to conventional paving materials. Though rubber sidewalks may bend a bit out of shape in response to aggressive roots they do not create abrupt edges over which pedestrians might trip, and they provide a softer surface should someone fall on them.