External wall crack

No41edwardianhouse

House we are buying - terraced very old 18th century property. Next door is end of terrace. When viewing we noticed a slightly bigger than hairline crack on the end of terrace house but just to the right of the boundary of the house we are buying. It goes from mid way up the way to the top. No cracks on the inside. It follows the mortar and one of the bricks straight through. Should we be worried? The crack doesn’t fall on the property we are buying. 

m0bov

Need pics 

No41edwardianhouse

Sadly I didn’t take any! 

No41edwardianhouse

Can you spot it - that creeper is none penetrating. 

KievLover

No41edwardianhouse said:

House we are buying - terraced very old 18th century property. Next door is end of terrace. When viewing we noticed a slightly bigger than hairline crack on the end of terrace house but just to the right of the boundary of the house we are buying. It goes from mid way up the way to the top. No cracks on the inside. It follows the mortar and one of the bricks straight through. Should we be worried? The crack doesn’t fall on the property we are buying. 

If it's only just above hairline and not on your property I wouldn't panic, but I would get a level 3 survey and/or a builder round to look closer at your house. Or maybe a structural engineer, whose job it is to assess for subsidence.

There's a scale for assessing subsidence and just above a hairline falls at 1, probably not even 2 out of 5.

Check the area out for flooding (you should be able to find online) and also see if there are any quarries nearby. 

Our very old rental is subsiding, we have a working quarry a mile away and the gigantic pools of water in the next field on occasion are apparently a dead giveaway.

No41edwardianhouse

KievLover said:

No41edwardianhouse said:

House we are buying - terraced very old 18th century property. Next door is end of terrace. When viewing we noticed a slightly bigger than hairline crack on the end of terrace house but just to the right of the boundary of the house we are buying. It goes from mid way up the way to the top. No cracks on the inside. It follows the mortar and one of the bricks straight through. Should we be worried? The crack doesn’t fall on the property we are buying. 

If it's only just above hairline and not on your property I wouldn't panic, but I would get a level 3 survey and/or a builder round to look closer at your house. Or maybe a structural engineer, whose job it is to assess for subsidence.

There's a scale for assessing subsidence and just above a hairline falls at 1, probably not even 2 out of 5.

Check the area out for flooding (you should be able to find online) and also see if there are any quarries nearby. 

Our very old rental is subsiding, we have a working quarry a mile away and the gigantic pools of water in the next field on occasion are apparently a dead giveaway.

Thanks. This is really helpful. There are absolutely no cracks externally or internally on the property we intend to buy. Equally, the crack on the next door house doesn’t extend down to the ground - a little odd. 

The house is over 200 years old so we expected it to just be part and parcel of buying an old house - albeit there are no cracks on our side. 

We had a home buyers survey (what they called now) and nothing significant reported on that. 

stuart45

The walls might have been repointed with a strong sand/cement mix. This can affect the way a wall expands and contracts thermally.
Plants growing up walls can increase damp problems stopping the sun drying them out.

No41edwardianhouse

stuart45 said:

The walls might have been repointed with a strong sand/cement mix. This can affect the way a wall expands and contracts thermally.
Plants growing up walls can increase damp problems stopping the sun drying them out.

So therefore, probably not too much to worry about? 

We have been told the bricks on the property were all “turned” in the 60s. Not entirely sure what this means…

stuart45

When bricks spall people often turn them around so the inside face becomes the external face. Cement pointing and plants up the wall often cause this problem.

No41edwardianhouse

stuart45 said:

When bricks spall people often turn them around so the inside face becomes the external face. Cement pointing and plants up the wall often cause this problem.

Thanks. So, I’m thinking there isn’t too much to worry about then?

stuart45

As the crack isn't on your house I wouldn't be too concerned. 
It looks like a thermal crack, which you don't usually get on old properties as they are built in lime mortar, but if there has been some rebuilding in cement mortar it could cause this.
Thermal cracks are quite common on long runs of masonry, which is why movement joints are now put into walls.