Advice request: External cracked brick & mortar lines

[SouthDrive]

Hello,

Hello,
I was clearing out my front garden earlier and I noticed these cracks in the mortar and also 1 crack through the centre of a brick (see blue image, crack is highlighted between parallel orange lines) -
Should these cracks be of any alarm, in particular the cracked / snapped brick?
Should I be taking any action?

thanks, Will

ps. I recently moved into this property in Bedfordshire which has a predominately "heavy clay" subsoil, I believe this is what my foundations sit on. the house was built post war ~ late 40's / 50s I think,

 

[robinbanks]

Should these cracks be of any alarm, in particular the cracked / snapped brick?

No. Your building just wanted some movement relief/an expansion joint but because it was built before a time we realised they were necessary, it doesn't have one provided by the builders so it's arranged its own. As you can imagine, it's formed at the part of the wall where the bond is weakest i.e that part of the wall that was built at 2pm on Friday, it went off bond because they forgot to cast an eye down to the perps below, and they thought "f*** it, it's not my house" and lashed a load of half bats in with nearly no bond at all so they could get to the pub on time

The time to worry about a crack is when you can get your hand in it

 

[SouthDrive]

Thank you so much for that explanation, could you kindly provide a glossary for this part though, I understood none of it!

"it went off bond because they forgot to cast an eye down to the perps below, and they thought "f*** it, it's not my house" and lashed a load of half bats in with nearly no bond at all"

Also, you mentioned that, that brick became the mechanical fuse for the building but what do house builders do now to afford the house some flexibility / settling ?

much appreciated Robin,
regs, Will

 

[^woody^]

Yes it looks like thermal cracking and cracks developed at the weakest point.

There are several reasons, and even today both modern and old walls can crack due to a specific combination of several factors.

 

[robinbanks]

Thank you so much for that explanation, could you kindly provide a glossary for this part though, I understood none of it!

"it went off bond because they forgot to cast an eye down to the perps below, and they thought "f*** it, it's not my house" and lashed a load of half bats in with nearly no bond at all"

Also, you mentioned that, that brick became the mechanical fuse for the building but what do house builders do now to afford the house some flexibility / settling ?

much appreciated Robin,
regs, Will

The bond is essentially the pattern in the bricks. Typically these days you just see stretcher bond because it's strong, simple and covers a lot of area for a relatively small number of bricks. Other bonds exist with features such as entire rows that are turned so you see the small end of the brick instead, as a way to bind the inner and outer

Your brickies went off bond - the pattern changes between the windows and the bricks don't much overlap each other

Modern walls may well feature expansion gaps; less than an inch wide and likely filled with silicone. The two parts of the wall are bonded together with special ties that permit the walls to move