New house cracks

GJ_WRX

Hi All

I was hoping someone could help advise me. We are the 2nd owners of a house built in 2009, we bought it about 9 months ago and all seemed well.

However over the last few months more and more cracks have been appearing. Most are around the door frames, window sills, in the corner of rooms etc and don't seem very deep. I'm also spotting quite a few indentations on the ceiling which look like joints and the nails holding them up.

I'm pretty sure that they weren't all here when we moved in and didn't just walk around with rose glasses on for that long!

I know most new houses take a while to settle and during this time cracks can appear but is this normal after 4 years?

Many thanks for any help

bosseyed

Cracks and the like appearing can be worrying I know, but generally they're nothing to worry about until they start getting beyond 5mm or so in width, then perhaps start getting the cause checked out. As you say, houses settle over time until they reach a fairly stable point, but they will continue to move in all directions over their lifetime due to moisture changes, thermal influences etc.

Sometimes it will be how the occupants are using a house can start to make cracks appear, people putting gallons of moisture into the air from umpteen showers or tumble dryers on all day might find the extra humidity causes expansion of the plaster and cosmetic cracks start appearing.

Differential movement is a big factor with different materials behaving differently under certain stresses such as increased thermal load either from the sun externally or from high levels of heat and moisture inside making bricks and mortar expand and contract at different rates - a prime example is bay windows on south facing walls often get a vertical crack at the junction of the wall and the angled bay where the (generally) timber bay expands and contracts far more rapidly than the masonry it is fixed to under solar gain causing the two to move at different rates and a crack to appear. So seasonal changes can make cracking more of an issue at differing times of the year.

Also the type of crack and its location will help give an indication as to its cause; are they horizontal, vertical, diagonal, toothed etc, at the junction of walls and ceilings or elsewhere?

Best thing to do is just keep an eye on them, see if they get much bigger.

Here's a couple of interesting links:
http://www.channel4.com/4homes/build-renovate/advice/how-to-spot-and-deal-with-cracks-08-05-28
http://theconstructor.org/concrete/cracking-in-walls/1464/

GJ_WRX

Many thanks for the reply.