Crack on external wall (inside attached garage)

Dan-Dan

Hi All

Had a survey on a house and the surveyor reported on the attached, there is no corresponding crack on the internal side of the wall so i am hopeful its nothing new and progressive

Picture isnt that great but any thoughts welcome?

Cheers


http://imgur.com/9BXlYpK

dominoman

I'm no expert but I wouldn't worry about a small crack like that if it isn't showing on the other side.

Every house has cracks in the bricks and mortar somewhere. You only really need to worry if they continue to change over time. In your case any house cracks would quickly show on the render so if that looks clean then don't worry

Dan-Dan

Thanks

The wall the crack is on isnt rendered ? (and the other side of the wall is an internal small room with the boiler in)

Dan-Dan

Sorry to bump this, just realised dominoman what you meant, if there were cracking issues elsewhere the render would show them up, gotcha, thanks

Spoke to the surveyor who says really its just something you either suck up and buy the house and monitor over time or move on totally, we are 280 miles away so feeling quite anxious about it

any other thoughts ?

Cheers

Dan-Dan

The survey says this :

The cracking area is slight and very slight within guidelines provided by The Building Research Establishment as can be seen by the table reproduced in fig 13.

The following table based upon BRE guidelines helps to classify the damage:

Crack Width (mm) Category Classification

Less than 2mm Very slight Aesthetic

2mm to 5mm Slight Aesthetic

5mm to 15mm Moderate Serviceabilty

15mm to 25mm Severe Serviceabilty

Over 25mm Very severe Stability Fig 13

From one inspection it is not possible to determine whether such cracking is recent and progressive or historic as to do so would require taking a series of measurements over a period of time. At the present time the cracking can be defined as aesthetic rather than structural but should be monitored to establish whether any significant remedial works are required.




I read this that whatever expert i may pay to go in, would say the same, you need to measure over time, which obviously isnt something i can do when buying a house?

Grenage

I've not seen the house, but In your position, I would not be worried about such a crack.

Dan-Dan

Thanks Grenage,my gut feeling is that the house is 42 years old,and that some cracks etc are inevitable,but being so far away magnifies the worry to be honest

Alias_Omega

if your worried, have the bricks replaced which have cracks in them. see how it goes after that.

EssexExile

Personally I wouldn't worry about that. My survey for this house went on & on about some cracks in the brickwork & suggested digging trial pits to investigate. That was 17 years ago, I'll get round to it one day. As Dominoman said, every house has cracks, I've found loads more that the surveyor didn't spot. Even if it did turn out to be "something", it can be fixed. The house won't fall down.

Followed by the usual caveats & disclaimers of course.