Large crack

[larco]

Hello,

My parents bungalow is showing this crack above the front elevation window. The rendering was bubbling up and my parents wanted to have it rerendered so i took some off and it revealed the crack.

I was wondering if this could be a cracked lintel or something else. Can it be fixed without removing the wall? Any idea of cost involved in fixing this?

House has cavity walls.

Thanks

 

[r896neo]

Is the reveal rendered or can you see the lintel?

 

[Static]

How old is the house..

Did the house originally have wooden windows? Has anything else been changed on the property (ie new extension etc)?

Photo of the whole wall would help

 

[stuart45]

Wooden windows often took the brickwork without a lintel on the external skin. When replaced with plastic there are often problems with cracking and the brickwork dropping and cracking the glass.

 

[larco]

bungalow late 50s.

not sure how long current windows have been in, slightly oldish but upvc

can it be rerendered without the wall having to be repaired?

 

[external]

get yourself a bricky m8,looks like theres no lintel and the brick skins cracked,maybe a lintel or a stitch and bar repair if your lucky!

 

[noseall]

Can you show a piccie revealing the whole window, i.e. stand further away?

 

[theoldun]

If you look at photos very carefully you can see that the bottom 25 to 30mm of soffit above head of frame has been made good.
I think that the original wooden windows were replaced. and that no lintel was there which used to be quite common practice years back, as brickwork was some times built over head of frame with 3 course of bricktor above.
I would say the window fitters put either a standard single leaf lintel or length of angle iron in to cure this problem, hence the making good between lintel and brickwork.
In my opinion, I do not think it will go any further, make it good as best you can and keep eye on it, or you could as external says put a couple of stitch bars in.
old un.

 

[theoldun]

Nose, Just seen your post, do me a favour, your eyes are younger than mine,. have a look along run of soffit of lintel. Has it been made good?
old un.

 

[noseall]

Nose, Just seen your post, do me a favour, your eyes are younger than mine,. have a look along run of soffit of lintel. Has it been made good?
old un.

Yes, there does seem to be a repair of about 50mm to the head of the window render, as the texture clearly changes even though it has been painted.

The crack has shown no mercy to the repair and has clearly fractured it as well.

What i find strange is the rather large width of the crack and the LACK of distortion between the masonry each side of the crack. For a crack this wide i would either expect the walls to have shifted or the window head to have bowed down considerably - hence the request for a broader viewed photo.

 

[noseall]

The window may have been replaced more than once..........

 

[alittlerespect]

Hi

Not that uncommon - problem is related to a timber frame window being replaced with plastic - the plastic deflects more than the wooden frame and the brickwork that was supported by the timber frame sags (best description I can think off) the top section goes into compression and the bottom section of the brickwork goes into tension (forced to stretch). Brickwork is pretty poor in tension and eventually the brickwork fractures in the way shown in your pictures.

Problem - this puts more weight on a plastic window frame that was unlikely to have been designed for such a loading - over time the above situation will repeat itself and eventually (if not already) you will find the casement windows difficult to open.

Regretfully, no easy cure. Temporary solution will be to monitor the crack, get some glass slides and stick one or two across the crack, use some alraldite either side of the crack to hold the glass in place, if there is any movement the glass will break. You can get purpose made 'tell tales' where you fit in a similar manner but they are in two parts and you can measure the distance of the movement.

Solution: check out www.helifix.com and they should have a remedial repair kit for such situations.

Regards

 

[larco]

Can you show a piccie revealing the whole window, i.e. stand further away?

another couple of pics:

btw the windows open and close fine, not sticking.

 

[stuart45]

It looks to me like the render was cut back all round the frame to get the old frame out and made good. The crack has happened later because of the plastic frame and no lintel or angle iron.

 

[noseall]

Ahh now the dog can see the rabbit!

That is a poor choice of window configuration for such a vulnerable location and span.

Anyhoo, looks to me like the window was installed, the masonry settled on the head causing it to drop and crack and (as said) repairs carried out to the head later on.