Roots do not “attack” a house. They grow where there is air, water, and room, and in South Florida that is often under a thin slab, a pool deck, or a sewer that was already leaking. KAP Tree Service gets called for tree root work in Davie when the walk is already lifted or the plumber already found wood in the cleanout.
Call (754) 291-6477 for a free estimate
Foundations and slabs
A live oak or ficus next to an older slab can lift a sidewalk or a patio. That is visible. Blaming every interior crack on the tree is a stretch. If the flare is buried and the soil has been packed by parking, you have a tree problem and a drainage problem. Cutting a trench along the foundation to “kill the roots” can destablize the tree and still leave the slab where it is. Look at the tree and the building together before anyone rents a saw.
On acreage in Southwest Ranches the distances are larger and the septic and well lines are the usual underground surprise. Call 811. Then mark what you know.
Pool decks and cages
Pool decks fail for a lot of reasons. Roots are one of them when a ficus or a black olive was planted in the setback. If the tree is staying, a deck repair that ignores the next ten years of root growth is a short repair. If the tree is going, grind or remove the stump so the new deck is not poured over a rotting crown. We take the tree. Your pool contractor owns the deck.
Plumbing
Roots in a sewer usually mean the pipe was already cracked or the joints were open. Roots follow the leak. Cutting roots in the line without fixing the pipe invites them back. A plumber cameras the line; we do not. If the camera shows a trunk-side invasion and the tree is a removal candidate for other reasons, that is one conversation. If the tree is a healthy oak and the pipe is orangeburg or clay, replace the pipe.
Do not pour copper sulfate down the cleanout as a personality. Follow the plumber.
When the tree should come out
If the roots have already broken the pool shell, heaved a corner of the house slab, or the tree is failing anyway, removal is cleaner than a decade of root cuts. If the only issue is a sidewalk panel, sometimes the panel is the cheaper sacrifice. We will say which one we think it is. For hazard signs above ground, use signs you need tree removal.
What we will not do
We will not guarantee a tree will “never lift another paver.” We will not secretly girdle a tree so it dies slowly on the neighbor’s side of the line. We will not trench a root plate the day before a named storm.
What a root job looks like on site
We will look at the tree, the hardscape, and whatever photos the plumber sent. If the tree is coming out, the roots are part of the removal and the grind. If the tree is staying, any root cut is a limited, named cut — this root, this side — not a trench around the trunk. We will not girdle a tree and call it root pruning.
Pavers can come up and go back down. That is a hardscape crew. We can grind a root that has already lifted a panel if the tree can spare it. We cannot un-grow a ficus mat under a pool deck without taking the tree.
If you are mid-claim with insurance on a slab, tell us before we cut. They may want photos of the roots in place. Once the stump is ground, the evidence is chips.
Old clay and orangeburg sewer lines in this county fail with or without a tree. Camera first. If the camera shows roots at a joint forty feet off the trunk, that is a pipe. If it shows a crushed section at the flare of a ficus you have been meaning to remove, that is a tree and a pipe. Do both or you will do the pipe twice.
We will not cut a tree down because a sidewalk is uneven and the tree is healthy. We will tell you that. You can still hire us to take it down if you want the sidewalk more than you want the shade. Just say so.
If you want us on the property, have the gate code, the HOA rule if there is one, and a clear photo of the whole tree or hedge from the side that faces the house. That is enough to start. We will tell you if we need to walk it before we price. No dollar figures on this page, no 24-hour promise we cannot keep, and no topping.
Davie is the yard we work from. Nearby cities are on the same trucks, not a different company. If the job is on the other side of the county line, say the city when you call so we bring the right permit conversation, not the Davie one.
Call KAP Tree Service at (754) 291-6477 for a free estimate
