There's a great crack in my house

I noticed it just this afternoon.

There's a crack in the outside wall. The wall doesn't look misshapen, its just that the mortar between a few bricks has cracked in a line. The crack runs diagonally about 3 bricks long, about 2 hight (the crack follows the mortar, not the bricks themselves), and then the same again round the corner.

Obviously I need to do something about it. But how urgent is it, and what needs to be done, and is my house likely to fall down any time soon?

Less than 3 years ago the surveyor found no cause for concern, and the land search checked up on what the house is built on top of (elsewhere in town there is some concern about houses built on shale, but not here).

We had a broken downpipe for a while that meant the affected wall got quite wet at one time a while back. I wonder if moisture got in, froze over winter, and cracked the mortar.

 

Can you get a pic tomorrow, I could take a better stab in the dark then

Are there any trees within 10 yards or so?

The water saturation would more likely manifest itself as a spalling of the brick faces, depending on how hard & impermeable the mortar is.

Yours is a reasonably new house isn't it?

 

Can you hear any voices thru it?

 

If it's running through the mortar line, my experience suggests you need this looking at. The mortar is less strong than the brickwork and is a far greater indicator that something is not quite "right".

Now, to be fair, I could be wrong and I will be happy to be wrong!

To reassure you, your home is not likely to fall down in the next few months (even, the next couple of years ) but it is something which will need to be addressed. Yes, it could be where damp has settled; but, you need to select "professional" opinion on this one, Clue xMx

 

If I remember right from what I saw in the deeds, its about 100 years old, but some folk say its more likely to date to the 1950s or 1960s. The latter can only be true if the house was flattened in the war and rebuild (much of my neighbourhood was, because of our proximity to the works). My street was, according to local records, the third street to be built in our 'village' when it was purpose built to house the workforce for the steelworks, at the beginning of the 1900s.

The mortar, to my untrained eye, looks like the 'old' kind (lime mortar?) and to be honest its not in the best condition. My mate who knows a lot more about these things than me said a few weeks back that the whole house needs repointing, ideally within the next couple of years.

 

I forgot to add, loads of trees near in our house, including a few proper big ones, but none within about 20 yards.

Also, there's no sign (so far) of anything having shifted inside the house. Skirting boards still line up, no cracks in the plaster, no doors that suddenly don't quite fit etc.

When I lived in Sheffield, that house was actually falling down. It was sliding down the hill and I showed the landlord a massive great crack in the house that actually had a matching crack inside. He said it was only superficial and I believed him for a while. That is until half the house suddenly lost its electricity supply and I set about fixing it myself (I know, I shouldn't have) and found that wires had literally pulled free of sockets and now no longer reached properly to be reconnected. Then the lad was born, and I set about converting the little bedroom from being my office (furniture in there that had never been moved since we moved in) to a kid's room. I moved a big cabinet, and behind it I saw that the floor boards were sheered at one end, and the skirting board was snapped. I never did put that lad in that room, and we'd moved out within a couple of months of discovering that.

 

If you trust his advice; take it

 

That doesn't quite make sense, is the crack stepped and following the mortar joints, or is it diagonal and cutting across bricks? The former (if minor movement) may only require re-pointing, but the latter will probably require cutting out the broken bricks and replacing with new (brick stitching), but either could be a sign of movement that a surveyor would want to monitor, perhaps with use of 'tell tales' across the cracks. Although it should not make a difference, this may not be a good time to change your buildings insurer.

 

Sounds like my mates flat in Bridport, i'm scared to go in it. You wouldn't want any furniture with castors on.

I'll be able to tell a lot more with a pic. At the moment, you've got the option of monitoring it. We'd do that by resin glueing a piece of glass across the crack, any further movement would crack it. But then again, so could Jamesy with a well aimed football.

To late in the year to repoint with lime, and i'd be failing in my duty of care to a mate if I told you to do it in sand and cement.

Good that there are no trees within 20m, that counts that bit out

Other thing could be that the broken downpipe had made the ground go swampy & caused some settling. Would need to check what the foundations are like but its not insurmountable.

As an aside, you mentioned Shale. Not that you are likely to but if you ever dig a big hole in a shale area, they can fill up with Carbon Monoxide

 

Yes, that.

No, as far as I can see, the bricks are all still intact.

 

Surely if its lime mortar it wont be strong enough to crack the bricks, the mortar joints will go first.
How wide is the crack?

 

I've got a block paved drive, so I can't see that the water would have got through that.

 

The bricks aren't cracked, just the mortar. The crack is just a line, you couldn't really poke anything into it.

 

Have you not noticed it before?

 

No, but given its position, that's no surprise really. From anywhere on my property or on the street, it is not obvious. I only notice today because unusually for me, I was in the next door church's grounds, and from that angle, it was more visible.