Surveyor or Builder?

[bruncher]

For inspection, and recommendations for remedial action for cracks to an exterior wall, could anyone recommend a process?

I had some decorating done recently and the painter and plasterer recommended I should at the minimum have re-pointing done ASAP. The plasterer (who did a great job) offered to do the pointing himself. He said it should be done wide - both sides of cracks - and deep.

It's a Victorian house. The cracks are not new, but look to have worsened.

We have only been here 2.5 years. I could ask the surveyor who worked for us when we bought the house to re-inspect.

How is the cause of cracks ascertained? Perhaps not a simple straightforward matter?

Grateful for any suggestions.

[redsturgeon]

For inspection, and recommendations for remedial action for cracks to an exterior wall, could anyone recommend a process?

I had some decorating done recently and the painter and plasterer recommended I should at the minimum have re-pointing done ASAP. The plasterer (who did a great job) offered to do the pointing himself. He said it should be done wide - both sides of cracks - and deep.

It's a Victorian house. The cracks are not new, but look to have worsened.

We have only been here 2.5 years. I could ask the surveyor who worked for us when we bought the house to re-inspect.

How is the cause of cracks ascertained? Perhaps not a simple straightforward matter?

Grateful for any suggestions.

Usually to test if the cracks are progressing they will use glass telltales. These are glued to either side of the crack and inspected at intervals to see if they break.

John

[bungeejumper]

Basic questions. Is it a brick wall or is it built from stone? And is the mortar lime or cement? (Could be either - our house is from the 1880s but still has lime mortar.) Either way, they require radically different approaches. If somebody's cement mortared into a lime mortared wall, you'll get various problems.

Any obvious causes of subsidence that you can think of? Nearby main drains/mining activity/Crossrail tunnelling? Any trees within 5 metres of the wall? (Looking at an 1850s map recently, I was somewhat alarmed to find that there used to be a pond where our house now stands! Fortunately the Victorians had diverted the watercourse and then built the foundations like a fortress, so no probs in the ensuing 130 years.)

I don't think you'd have anything to lose by asking the surveyor to have another look. He should have noted the existing cracking in his original report, so he'd be best positioned to advise.

BJ

[bruncher]

Hi bungeejumper

The walls are brick. There have been changes (I would guess 20 years ago) to the wall e.g. an area is bricked up which apparently used to be a door. I think the mortar in the new section and all the most recent re-pointing looks like cement.

There is a substantial Ivy growth on a nearby fence even though there is no growth on the house itself, last summer it grew towards the house under the decking. I cut it back.

I think we will have the surveyor.

[if rental contacts were fairer in the UK I would be happy as a tenant and leaving all this to professionals!]

[bungeejumper]

Hi Bruncher

The ivy won't be a cause of this problem, although a nearby tree (10 foot conifer, or even/especially a big holly against the wall) could have been a different matter. From what you've described, it seems more likely to be connected with the bricked-up door. I wonder what they did with the threshold?

Bricking up a doorway with cement mortar in the middle of a lime-mortared wall shouldn't really cause problems - the probs with cement mortar usually happen when people have actually cement-mortared over old lime-mortar in old walls, which wouldn't be the case here. (=Cement mortar is harder than lime mortar, doesn't breathe, and can hold water inside the brickwork, whereupon it freezes in frost, becomes unstable and then cracks away, so that you get even more water into the old lime-mortar joints. That's why people shouldn't do it. )

It shouldn't cost you anything to phone up the original surveyor and report the query so that he can check up on his homework. I assume that this was a proper building survey, and not just a lightweight valuation survey for the sake of the mortgage?

Good luck!

BJ