Chimney / cracking of ceiling

penelope26

I wondered if someone could possibly help. Basically I have gone through the whole of my house & had it replastered. I then had a guy over on Wed to fit an aerial to my chimney. Whilst he was up on the roof I heard a banging like noise & thought he'd knocked something off which had fallen down the chimney. He came down & started testing the tv signal & the noise kept happening. Then all of a sudden there was a louder bang. I went outside looking for something which may have caused the noise - nothing, I asked the engineer if he'd knocked something off he said no, slightly baffled I sat there waiting for the next bang. Then because it started getting darker I put the living room light on and looked up in horror, there is now a crack from my chimney breast the whole wide of the living room. This is no normal hairline crack, you could probably put a slice of paper in it. He straight away said it was nothing he had done. anyway I have since heard more noises & it terrifies me. Tonight I have been back in the living room & noticed that hte ceiling crack also goes down the wall but is not so wide. the chimney breat has spider cracks down it and there is another crack in the corner of the living room ceiling. I checked upstairs and two of the bedroom ceilings are quite badly cracked (i.e. the same as the living room). I don't know if this is something to worry about. When the engineer was fitting the aerial is there any chance he could have stressed my roof? I'm gutted that all my ceilings are damaged & not sure what my rights are

tanith

If I was you I would get someone in to check it out... it could be something like your chimney being unstable .. I don't want to cause alarm but you never know it might be dangerous .. you can figure out how it happened after you make sure its safe...

penelope26

thanks for the advice, I'll call an engineer out. I have no money at the mo & guessing they cost the earth

Yorkshire_Bred

Could you be covered on your buildings insurance........ maybe worth checking out, but yesI would get a surveyor to check out your concerns.

fiddiwebb

Have you looked at the chimmney outside and in your attic?

Don't understand how your upstairs and downstairs ceilings are cracked unless your chimmney is moving?

never_enough

Your buildings insurance should cover getting someone out to check this. It may be worthwhile just jotting down the chain of events before you speak to them, it's handy so you dont get confused.
As earlier poster says get things sorted, then work out responsibility. I can't imagine how the aerial guy could've caused this to happen, but then I'm not a builder or engineer so will be interested to hear from people who know much more about this kind of stuff. If it is his fault he will have insurance for just this kind of situation.

fiddiwebb

Likewise. I can't understand how the aerial guy could have caused the problem unless there was an existing problem already.

Is the chimmney used, is it on a gable end?

Have you had any ground works done on your property recently?

Possibility of water ingress and then freezing but I would have thought to cause that amount of damage there must have been an awfull lot of water getting in?

illzlee

difficult to make a real judgement on this without seein picture of the cracks etc..

but, the banging you speak of may have been a hammer drill used by the aerial installer to fix the aerial to your chimney. It is quite unlikely that the vibration caused by this tool would cause such extensive cracking you describe, but it may have transmitted existing defects in the brickwork to the more brittle plaster.

Claim on your buildings insurance, make sure you have the aerial guy's details and get a building surveyor to look at this (your ins co will send one). If the surveyor is concenred he will call out a structural engineer.

As an aside, you say the whole house has been plastered - some of the cracking could be drying out of the plaster?

penelope26

thanks for the info, I may be overreacting but want to get it checked as the noise alone freaked me out & now my lovely plastered room looks like a patchwork quilt, I'm obviously not pleased. I will try my insurance company & see what they come back with. I was going to put some photos on here but not sure how to do it

Airwolf1

Is it just the new plaster cracking, or are the walls cracking too? You may need to remove some plaster to see.
The chimney may be unstable, but I'd contact the insurance company who may recommend a structural engineer to come out and inspect.

hethmar

The majority of this would sound like the plaster drying out but Im concerned about the bangs you heard. This could suggest the midfeathers (or withes) - the bricks which dividied the chimney into two flueways, may be unstable and bricks have dropped down. Get the engineer out sharpish as if they do drop in a large number they could cause a lot of damage.