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BioBarrier has a 15 year warranty (this is not the useful lifespan, which is much, much longer), no other product offers a warranty against tree roots growing through the product that I am aware of. The fact that Fiberweb, the manufacturer, stands behind the product performance speaks volumes about the effectiveness of BioBarrier in comparison to rigid plastic barriers, like the product mentioned above. Rigid plastic barriers typically only offer the legally required warranty against manufacturer’s defects, not root intrusion across the barrier. So if anything goes wrong with your installation, you have no guarantee to fall back on with other products. Fiberweb will refund your purchase price or replace the product if any roots grow through the barrier in 15 years, which is stated on the website
www.biobarrier.com. BioBarrier was designed for a projected design-life of 100 years (originally to protect against hazardous waste sites, informative video from a distributor:
http://www.stanhoglund.com/1.html), and has over 35 years of successful installations still performing today. This gives you the peace of mind in selecting BioBarrier, because stopping roots is a long-term plan when considering the average urban tree lives 15-25 years. As mentioned above, it is very versatile, allowing for multiple application methods (vertical Root Barrier, Horizontal Weed Barrier, or Surrounding Pipe/Underground Infrastructure) and easy to install. The 20’ or 100’ rolls reduce the risk of separation at the connections, which is the cause of failure in the vast majority of root barrier applications. Less connections = less issues with separation during settlement or shifting of the subsoil. The topping on the cake is that BioBarrier allows water and nutrients to pass through the barrier (just not roots), and in a region like Los Angeles it is important to provide trees with access to subsurface water and food sources, not create a bathtub effect that isolates the roots and creates extreme influxes of moisture. All of these attributes add up to an extremely well engineered, time tested solution to effectively stop roots from causing damage down the road. I hope this helps answer your questions. Best regards,
Matt
Matt.kocian@fiberweb.com
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Matt,
Thanks for stepping into the forum.
Welcome.
I've used a lot of biobarrier over the years.
The longest span was at my own house, about 200 foot long span, very expensive.
It was to keep bamboo roots from traveling toward my pond.
Well, it worked for a little while maybe, but I've inspected parts of it and the bamboo roots are through it like spears.
I did look into your guarantee (maybe 2 years ago when I saw the roots) and it basically says you will only refund the small section that is damaged.
I didn't bother to contact you guys. I'm not going to dig up the whole yard again and inspect every foot of it and measure the parts with roots through it. If there is a 3/4" root through it and you followed your wording, only a 3/4" length of fabric would be refunded.
I also figured you might say it's not "tree roots".
I didn't look into it, maybe the chemical doesn't affect cell division in monocots.
I was suprised the first time I used it, the fabric isn't as tough as I thought it would be. It really has to rely on stoping cell division.
I will still use it around trees in unique situations, unless one day, for some rare reason we dig up an old install and find that it didn't work on a tree.
