Hello All!
Can anyone help me on to whether these cracks are significant or not??
The foundation ones are on the back end of the house. The last ones are on the ceiling ( front of the house)
Thanks
I would recommend having a structural engineering take a look at it.
The first pictures are not cracks (if I’m seeing what you’re seeing). The ground has settled below the exterior wall coating and you can now see the foundation.
The second pictures however are structural movement indicators. You can’t tell the significance by looking at one picture.
Get someone in there that knows what they’re looking at and and determine if there are enough associations with other components that would indicate a significant structural issue.
Otherwise, repair and monitor.
This is a perpendicular connection (from what I can see) above a doorway? It would be nice if you could back up so we can see what were looking at.
Before taking a shortcut out of the situation and deferring to an engineer just because you see a crack without collecting or inspecting all components, I would do a little more investigating on my own.
It doesn’t give your client a good perspective of the rest of your work when an engineer comes in and says he doesn’t even know why he’s there.
Are you a home inspector?
Did you measure for moisture?
Did you check flashing?
What type of framing do you have on the interior?
You might want to brush up on your stucco siding applications before the engineer gets there.
The horizontal “crack” is the slab is not a crack at all. It’s a cold-joint.
The foundation and slab were poured at different times and a “honeycomb” formed at the joints from inadequate vibration. These are very common with this type of construction method and have no structural significance.
You beat me to it…
David Anderson, my concern is with the cracks in the ceiling. After I had done a thorough review of it myself and if I did not find any obvious reasons for damage I would recommend that you have a structural engineer take a look at it. I do not hesitate to tell my client that after I have looked at an issue in depth and can find no reason for the problem to contact a professional in that area to review further. Is this wrong?
Absolutely not!
There is very little information in these pictures and their perspective does not lend to a very good assessment over the Internet.
The first few pictures do not lend themselves to the need for engineering assessment.
The last picture can be a significant issue but because of its possible location it could be just shrinkage if there’s a lot of framing in that location.
Insufficient information on the posts, so I recommend collecting more before calling in the big guns. If you do a thorough review, as you indicated you should have enough information to call it more than just a crack in the siding.
There would need to be several other obvious, or potentially-contributing factors before recommendation of an SE would be warranted. Cracks like these, in and of themselves, do not warrant that type of recommendation.
I’d generally agree there as well… cold joint to be sealed to prevent moisture from penetrating any steel. Without seeing some other indicators in the structure… these cracks may be from an abundance of sources.
I would agree with you Jeff, on the exterior. As far as the cracks in the ceiling on the interior, I would certainly not recommend bringing in an engineer at this point, especially since it does not appear to be drywall? Appears to be lath and plaster? If it is and the plaster is not sagging simply repair the crack. If it is drywall I would admit you have movement from somewhere and you should monitor before fixing and if it does get worse you will need to figure out what is going on, if you can’t then hire a pro.