A couple of years ago, maybe a little longer, a tree root grew under the water line that runs from our water well to the pressure tank under my workshop: 80-some-odd feet distant. As the root grew, it pushed upward on the water line. This would not have been an issue had it happened most anywhere along that 80-some-odd foot span (in fact it probably has happened several times) but because it happened right next to the well head, which does not flex at all, the PVC water pipe fractured.
We didn’t know that at first. The water line (and the well head for that matter) are underground. It had been raining a lot, and the ground gets wet when it rains a lot. But when the rains stopped and the ground refused to dry, I began to suspect something.
I hired a plumber who specialized in well work to come see what was what. The biggest problem was that I wasn’t even sure where our well head WAS. The fella who installed it (long ago) cut off the head pipe below ground and buried it. I had a rough idea, but that was all. The plumber watched the way the water moved and found some burbling that indicated pay dirt — or pay mud.
He cut out a piece of the PVC and installed a flexible metal line between the PVC run and the well head so the line could “give” as tree roots bullied it.
