How to repair crack in stone/concrete sill

[Postik]

I have this decorative sill with a crack down the middle. It's a newish house so I assume it's made from coloured concrete or similar.

I'm unsure what product to use to fill it to stop water ingress. I might repaint the sill with Sandtex masonry paint in the future but for now I'd just like to fill it.

Sandtex do a filler but it's white which will stand out like a sore thumb. I guess another option is clear silicone, but I'm not sure how well that would adhere.

Please let me know what you think!

 

[noseall]

I have this decorative sill with a crack down the middle. It's a newish house so I assume it's made from coloured concrete or similar.

I'm unsure what product to use to fill it to stop water ingress. I might repaint the sill with Sandtex masonry paint in the future but for now I'd just like to fill it.

Sandtex do a filler but it's white which will stand out like a sore thumb. I guess another option is clear silicone, but I'm not sure how well that would adhere.

Please let me know what you think!

I doub't you will have any success with fillers and certainly not anything that lies on the surface like silicone. I'm pretty sure everything you'll try will either stick out like a sore thumb or be too minimal to have a lasting effect. Thick paint is your best bet.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

What I don't understand is that you say it's in the middle but there are bricks above. Is it a mullioned window?

Either ignore it or replace it.

Anything else will look weird, especially if all the others are bare.

Painting all the others to match would be a huge mistake, you'll make the whole house look rubbish and create a new maintenance task every few years and it will end up a blistered peeling mess as all masonry paint eventually does.

All in all, I'd strongly suggest just not caring about it. But if the house is under warranty then it may be covered, if someone else is paying then get it replaced.

 

[Postik]

What I don't understand is that you say it's in the middle but there are bricks above. Is it a mullioned window?

Either ignore it or replace it.

Anything else will look weird, especially if all the others are bare.

Painting all the others to match would be a huge mistake, you'll make the whole house look rubbish and create a new maintenance task every few years and it will end up a blistered peeling mess as all masonry paint eventually does.

All in all, I'd strongly suggest just not caring about it. But if the house is under warranty then it may be covered, if someone else is paying then get it replaced.

It's one of those fake bricked up windows, to make the house look old (from the time of the window tax).

You're right about painting them, but sadly the new build developers around here do paint them. They paint them virtually the same colour as the original finish which makes no sense to me. I assume it's perhaps because they get damaged during construction so they patch them up and then paint them across the entire estate to match.

So all the others are painted although in many places the paint has completely worn off, but because it's the same colour as the finish underneath it's not really noticeable. Unfortunately I don't know what paint they used, otherwise I could repair this one more thoroughly, paint it, and after a couple of years it would probably look the same as all the others.

When I bought the house a couple of years ago the surveyor pointed out this crack, and whilst most likely not serious, he said it should be repaired to stop water ingress. It has gotten slightly wider than in the photo I posted here, due to the freeze-thaw action over the last couple of years.

The house is under warranty but I think there is a minimum claim amount of £1800 which would probably be their get our clause in this instance.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

That makes sense, so it's basically just a cosmetic feature.

It could be £1800 by the time they've scaffolded, had health and safety assessments and meetings about it. Might be worth a try.

It sounds like you may be worrying as the surveyor picked up on it. They often give scary sounding worst case scenarios, they just do this so that if the world does explode then you can't say they didn't warn you, so have people worrying lots about things that really don't matter. I really doubt it's worth caring about, especially as it's just part of the wall and doesn't support anything.

Could you take a less zoomed in photo showing the whole sill?

 

[Postik]

That makes sense, so it's basically just a cosmetic feature.

It could be £1800 by the time they've scaffolded, had health and safety assessments and meetings about it. Might be worth a try.

It sounds like you may be worrying as the surveyor picked up on it. They often give scary sounding worst case scenarios, they just do this so that if the world does explode then you can't say they didn't warn you, so have people worrying lots about things that really don't matter. I really doubt it's worth caring about, especially as it's just part of the wall and doesn't support anything.

Could you take a less zoomed in photo showing the whole sill?

Okay, thanks.

Here's a photo showing the whole sill.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

I'd say there's zero chance of structural issues.

Honestly I'd spend £10 on some fertiliser, pour it on that bush to encourage it to grow and hide it. But there is a near horizontal surface so there's some potential for a tiny amount of water to get in.

Filler and paint would work, paint it all, not just over the crack but don't paint the others to match. In as close a colour as you can get.

Rake it out with something first, turn the crack into a v-shaped valley. Hopefully it's done all the moving it wants to so won't crack again.

Hopefully the bush will grow as the paint falls off!