Hi all
This is going to be quite a long post so please bear with me, I will try and keep it as relevant as possible.
We bought a 3 bed semi a couple of years ago, it is a brick build with rendered outer walls and tile roof. It is in an L shape with the shorter part of the L joined to next door. This may or may not be relevant to the issue we are trying to sort out. The build year is around 1920's.
When we were buying we had a homebuyers survey, a more specialist survey, and then more relevantly a structural engineers report to investigate cracking on the inside and outside walls of the house. The SE report concluded there were no serious structural movement issues and that cracks in the downstairs walls were largely caused by thermal expansion, and cracking in the inside internal walls likely to be caused by either: poor construction technique when property was built, or missing or corroded wall ties, or a problem with the roof rafters (something called roof spread was mentioned).
Now, I am looking to try and sort out the problem with the upstairs cracks to fix what is there at the minute but more importantly to try and stop it happening again, but I am not sure what is the best way to go about doing this. I have spoken to some roofers who said it would be a joiner if it was the roof joists that was the issue, the problem is that I don't know what the cause of the problem actually is. I am going to try and contact some decent builders to come over to have a look but I am worried that I am going to be given incorrect advice about how to fix the problem.
The main area where there is cracking is the front bedroom and this is the issue that I want to try and sort out. The cracks are running horizontally along the side wall (external - no corresponding cracks at the same place externally but please see my comment below) kind of from head height to the ceiling then they progress along the ceiling in a diagonal line, this is kind of suggesting to me an issue with the timbers in the roof moving relative to the wall. Some of the cracks have been progressive over the last year or so and there is evidence of older cracks that have been filled however some have re-opened. Largest crack around 4mm wide however the larger ones do not appear recent or progressive. All the larger ones picked up by the SE report and noted as not being serious or considered significant. The recent / progressive ones are around 1mm max wide but the cracks are not level ie one side of the crack is higher than the other.
Externally there are no cracks at that exact spot but cracking further along the wall where there is a large side window. The pattern of these cracks externally (nothing internally) suggests that when the window was replaced the brickwork above was possibly not supported properly leading to movement above. I am not sure if this is related to the first cracking issue or whether there are in fact various separate issues going on.
Is there any way I can try and narrow down and figure out the cause of these cracks in the front bedroom so I can then try and figure out the best people to talk to in order to get these sorted? Is this something that I could do myself (keen amateur but feel a bit out of my depth with this sort of thing) I can try and get some pics up or provide more info if that would be useful. Any help would be really great and apologies for the length of this post.
This is going to be quite a long post so please bear with me, I will try and keep it as relevant as possible.
We bought a 3 bed semi a couple of years ago, it is a brick build with rendered outer walls and tile roof. It is in an L shape with the shorter part of the L joined to next door. This may or may not be relevant to the issue we are trying to sort out. The build year is around 1920's.
When we were buying we had a homebuyers survey, a more specialist survey, and then more relevantly a structural engineers report to investigate cracking on the inside and outside walls of the house. The SE report concluded there were no serious structural movement issues and that cracks in the downstairs walls were largely caused by thermal expansion, and cracking in the inside internal walls likely to be caused by either: poor construction technique when property was built, or missing or corroded wall ties, or a problem with the roof rafters (something called roof spread was mentioned).
Now, I am looking to try and sort out the problem with the upstairs cracks to fix what is there at the minute but more importantly to try and stop it happening again, but I am not sure what is the best way to go about doing this. I have spoken to some roofers who said it would be a joiner if it was the roof joists that was the issue, the problem is that I don't know what the cause of the problem actually is. I am going to try and contact some decent builders to come over to have a look but I am worried that I am going to be given incorrect advice about how to fix the problem.
The main area where there is cracking is the front bedroom and this is the issue that I want to try and sort out. The cracks are running horizontally along the side wall (external - no corresponding cracks at the same place externally but please see my comment below) kind of from head height to the ceiling then they progress along the ceiling in a diagonal line, this is kind of suggesting to me an issue with the timbers in the roof moving relative to the wall. Some of the cracks have been progressive over the last year or so and there is evidence of older cracks that have been filled however some have re-opened. Largest crack around 4mm wide however the larger ones do not appear recent or progressive. All the larger ones picked up by the SE report and noted as not being serious or considered significant. The recent / progressive ones are around 1mm max wide but the cracks are not level ie one side of the crack is higher than the other.
Externally there are no cracks at that exact spot but cracking further along the wall where there is a large side window. The pattern of these cracks externally (nothing internally) suggests that when the window was replaced the brickwork above was possibly not supported properly leading to movement above. I am not sure if this is related to the first cracking issue or whether there are in fact various separate issues going on.
Is there any way I can try and narrow down and figure out the cause of these cracks in the front bedroom so I can then try and figure out the best people to talk to in order to get these sorted? Is this something that I could do myself (keen amateur but feel a bit out of my depth with this sort of thing) I can try and get some pics up or provide more info if that would be useful. Any help would be really great and apologies for the length of this post.
