There's a great crack in my house

Are you opposite St Williams Church?

 

Probably good to get it checked but sounds fairly unimportant.

 

Cross posted there then, was looking at the wrong house

 

Not opposite, right next door.

 

Now i've seen the number on the door all becomes clearer

1950/60's house, possible that they were still building in Lime Mortar out in the provinces then. Bottom corner & lower courses the other side of the door have been re pointed in cement mortar, which is probably the cause of the crack, although you have a cavity wall looking at the bond of the bricks, the cement mortar will have held the water in the masonry after the leaky downpipe incident, increasing the likelyhood that your cavity ties have rusted & expanded, causing movement in the brick skin.

Solution, wait till spring, cut out the defective area, take out the corroded ties, replace them with stainless steel helifix bar & re build the area in lime mortar.

Highly unlikely to be a subsidence problem.

 

Thought you were selling the place anyway?

 

As far as I understand that Zig, it makes sense. Someone has gone over bits of the mortar and attempted to repoint with modern cement, which is coming away in places to reveal the original cement behind it.

How much work is what you describe? Is it a DIY job or do I need to hire a certain type of tradesman? Am I looking at being relieved of a lot of money?

 

Only yesterday, I decided I was certain we were staying put. I still hope that's the case. In any case, if the fault is big enough to make me run away from it, then the house is worthless anyway, so either way, need to sort it out.

 

Not at all, I could talk you thru all of that from here. Its not a problem that would worry me in the slightest.

Chances are that the guys that built it were still using lime mortar. If not then they would be using a weaker cement mixture guaged with lime. That was sacrificial in favour of the masonry, its cheaper to repoint than to replace the masonry.

Trouble was, that was forgotten when cement became popular, when the bottom bits got weathered out, a quick fix was to repoint in cement,which makes the problem worse.

Pity you're not a bit nearer, could sort it out over a weekend with a few bottles going down.

 

Well, if you fancy an all expenses paid working holiday for a weekend, you know where I am.

 

I do, might take you up on that when the frost has passed, unless i'm in Spain, then we'll have to re build it via Skype

 

Thought you were coming to Portugal, Zigs?

 

our Zigs is sometimes quite enigmatic to decode...

 

It was Zigs that cracked the enigma code? I didn't think he was old enough.

 

Took me a while to wrestle the box off that Luftwaffer pilot, tricked him when I gave a Heil Hitler salute, he did the same so I punched him on the chin.