Cracks in wall above and below window.

[dano41]

Hi All.

We are currently looking at purchasing a house, I think it's early 70's.
I've noticed a crack in the front wall above and below the UPVC window and was after some advice on what people thought.

The house is ex-MoD and is on an estate of about 50 properties which are identical and I have since walked around the rest of the estate and noticed the same cracks in the same place on probably 30% of the houses (some of which have had new mortar in the crack). All windows are identical and I guess all houses would have had them replaced at the same time.

Could it just be to do with the window replacement (as it is on a number of houses) or something more worrying?

Not looked inside the house yet, we're going tomorrow, and I will be getting a survey done, just after a bit of advice.


Thanks.
Dano.
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[tony1851]

The cracks above the windows are to be expected when they replace the old timber windows with pvc, and don't bother about fitting a lintel.

The cracks below the window, near the ground, are a little more worrying.

 

[dano41]

Thanks Tony,

I thought the cracks above could be due to window replacement and was hoping that may be the case for the one below too.

The crack doesn't seem to go all the way to the ground but stops a couple of courses up.

Looking at the same crack on the other houses this one looks a little worse because it has had more weathering as it was a rented property and probably hasn't been pointed as some of the other ones have.

Dano.

 

[Gazman16]

In the 3rd picture there seems to be a bit of a gap in the silicone above the window in the left hand corner, Can you look/poke around in there to see if you can see a metal lintel?

My 1st guess would be no lintels but Id estimate those PVC windows are about 15 years old and I would expect to see a lot more cracks and sagging of both the bricks and window frames if there are no lintels fitted.

Do any of the neighboring property's look like they have had work done above their windows (lintels retro fitted) if so you could try knocking on a few doors and asking what they have had done, How much it cost and if they would recommended the builder that did it.