g'day danako,

first up no amount of trimming/prunning/lopping will stop the spread of the
roots.

a root barriers might give some respite, probably depends on how experienced
the person who install it is. they are a rubber type barrier.

yes the neighbour can be held responsible through common law if you have the
desire to waste huge amounts of good money. if mediation won't work (have
you tried that avenue yet?), then you may have to do something on your own
behalf or continue to pay plumbers to repair the problem. the picture man
plumber may be right but for me i would rather have expended that cost into
a repair.

it sounds like you may have those older pipes the earthen ones? they are the
easiest ones for roots to broach? just go to and get the old pipes ripped up
and lay new heavy duty poly pipe that is glue sealed and the roots should
almost never cause any more problems. well to the plumbing maybe, they could
of course damage foundations and paths/driveways.

anyhow keep us informed as to what you do, $16k does sound a littel
excessive though.

len

http://www.users.bigpond.com/gardenlen1/

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