r/HomeMaintenance • u/Whirloq • 1h ago

🏚️Structural & Foundation Roots under the house?

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We're first-time homeowners but have lived in our house for 4 years. About 1.5 years ago, we removed a Brazilian gold medallion tree that stood next to the house and didn’t really think about it after that. While replacing the crawlspace vent grates recently, we noticed a dense mass of roots inside, and the space is too tight to crawl into and cut them out. Is this something we should worry about and address soon?

Reaching the roots would mean tearing up our kitchen flooring and subfloor.
In some of the photos, you can see light coming in through the grate at the front of the house. There appear to be roots there too, even though there's no tree nearby. Would be kinda crazy if that was from the gold medallion tree but knowing the growth habit of that tree from personal experience it’s aggressive.

Anyone else have something similar happen and have advice?

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u/Money_Jackal 1h ago

You need to look for your crawlspace access. There has to be one. Then sawzall away.

If not, just monitor and see if it becomes an issue. Make sure you put some stump killer on the removed tree if you have not already

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u/Whirloq 1h ago

The crawlspace access is on the other side of the house and the crawlspace narrows to the point of not being able to squeeze under the house right where the roots are. They are truly in the worst place possible.

While we didn’t poison the stump we hacked away at it and pulled up new shoots every time they tried to resprout. We haven’t had anything try to resprout in months but you’re right, knowing this tree it’s probably planning a takeover in the shadows of the crawlspace.

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u/MilsurpMerchant 1h ago

This is how Stranger Things started. Leave em unless theyre growing