Thermalite cracked wall

[grandad90]

Hi everybody. I have a couple of vertical cracks a few metres apart in an extended two storey garage/bedroom above, wall. The external wall in question is thermalite/cavity/thermalite on the ground floor and then brick/cavity/thermalite above it with a rsj running front to back between the two.

The cracks appeared after about 1 year and run through through the mortar and the blocks down to the damp course red brick line where they stop. I cannot see if they are cracked on the outside as they have built so close to next door. The cracks are a few mm across and appear to be ground floor up to rsj only as far as I can tell. I had a builder friend round when they appeared who stated it appeared to be too strong mortar mix and typical thermalite cracks/shrinkage. I have monitored the cracks for 2 years during which they haven't go any bigger.

My question is, I would like to cut out the blocks one by one and replace them/use weaker mortar to see what happens as they are ugly and messing up the chi of the garage! My other reason for cutting them out is to see if they are cracked on the other side of the cavity. Can I do this without causing structural problems as of course it's a load bearing wall?

I want to convert the garage eventually and dot/dab/board this wall but just knowing the cracks are there is a pain. Cheers

 

[jeds]

Your builder was spot on. (He is from the planet Earth is he?) You could cut them out if you really must. One by one won't cause any issue. Otherwise don't bother and join the thousands of others who have exactly the same cracking nicely out of sight under their dot and dab plasterboard.

 

[grandad90]

Thanks for the reply. I suppose I could stick some EML over the cracks as well but I'd like it if the cracks were not there so I will try cutting them, just wanted to make sure there were no structural issues.