You're hitting a quoting problem; the $5 is being interpreted at the wrong time. There are at least two solutions:
Put a
\before the$; e.g./usr/bin/ssh -i /path/to/key user@server "df -h | grep /dev/root | awk '{print \$5}'"Run the
dfremotely but thegrepandawklocally. e.g./usr/bin/ssh -i /path/to/key user@server df -h | grep /dev/root | awk '{print $5}'
FWIW, I'd run a version of the second option but merging grep and awk
/usr/bin/ssh -i /path/to/key user@server df -h | awk '/\/dev\/root/ {print $5}'