Structural Advice required

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Hi, I'm currently renovating a house which has some cracks in the walls. I'm no structural engineer so would like some expert opinions.

The house is a semi-detached 50 year old ex-council house. Generally the build quality is poor. The dividing walls between the bedrooms are made from light breeze block directly on the floorboards, and so are not built upon walls below.

The crack in question has been filled in many times in the past, however this does not properly cure it. The crack is where one of the dividing walls, light breezeblock, meet the chimney brest. I don't think that the two walls are properly tied to each other, could this be the case?

There are also cracks in many of the ceilings, where the different sections of plasterboard meet.

Any help would be gratefully accepted,
Thanks in advance,
Matt.

I appreciate that this is difficult to visualize so i have included so pictures....

Wide view of crack...
crack_3.jpg

Crack, close up....
crack_2.jpg

Crack, another view...
crack_1.jpg

Example of crack in ceiling....
ceiling_crack.jpg
 
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Good pics..shame about the crack.part of the answer is in your statement.there`s no support for walls AND judging by the straight cracks, nowt is tied in to the chimney so it stands firm and the side walls move :cry: I personaly would TRY and make some sort of tie in horizontally across crack using stainless steel rod etc and resin anchor system....only my thoughts. A architect/engineer may have a "proper" answer on the same lines :?: .....Ceiling cracks.if plasterboard, may have missed the joists when tacking the edges........used to be done by one guy with an 8x4 sheet of board :!: :!: and a mouthfull of nails.I`ve seen it done. :cry: SO look above and maybe strengthen with wood noggin nailed to side of exist. joists......... you`re lucky to get a long reply ;)and a link pamties.co.uk
 
are there supporting walls below the partitions? even though they are built off of the boards (i assume this is first floor from your description)
 
there are walls below but the walls upstairs are not built directly on top of them they are staggered, i would say that there is a gap of about 5cm between them as below....

[code:1]
|==| (upstairs)
|==|
--------------------------------------
Ceiling Void
______________________________________
|==|
|==| (downstairs)
|==|
[/code:1]

In my view this is strange but apparently it's how it's done in all the houses in the street.
 
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the first floor walls may well be supported off the floor joists(perpendicular to the joists as shown) but that needs the floor joists to be capable of taking the load of the walls ( i assume the first floor joists dont support anything e.g roof). The capability of the floor joists to take the walls depends on the floor joist sizes and the spans between the supports.
 
kinda got the jist of that last post... not sure about the dimetions of joist or spans, will check next time i'm there

a point which i forgot to mention is that the walls in question do not support anything, i.e. the roof.

The house is two story btw.
 
Can't you remove the wall and replace it with a simple timber partition, with plasterboard? Much easier to secure that against movement, and you might end up with slightly more space.
 
The house will be built far better than a great many of the modern chuck up garbage that is being knocked together at the moment. That crack has been raked out many times, so it makes it look a lot larger than it is. It also tells us that this crack has been there a great deal of time, which suggests initial settlement, which a great many houses have and a great deal of old houses posses as an ongoing process. Don’t get all paranoid about it, all that’s happening is the chimney breast and end of the wall are slightly scissoring against one another. If anything serious was happening it would have happened long before now. I cannot see the partition wall upstairs making the slightest impression on the floor joists below considering the foot of the wall is build so close to the bearing of the joists. If you go downstairs, I can guarantee the area of ceiling below will show not the slightest sign of the partition wall above dropping. I can also note from your pictures that the head of the wall in the bedroom shows absolutely no sign of pulling away from the angle at the ceiling. Because there is no sign of vertical movement at the angle between the head of the wall and ceiling and there will be no sign downstairs, one has to form the obvious opinion that the wall is not settling to any degree at all. I would suggest the crack is from the walls and plaster contracting and expanding, that’s all.

If you want to fix it permanently, hack the plaster off from floor to ceiling back to the brick/block making the chase three inches wider each side of the crack. Buy a roll of scrim and a decent plaster filler like Lafarge, after wetting the scrim and wetting the crack mix up some plaster and then build up the crack in layers of plaster with scrim embedded in it, making sure the scrim traverses right across the crack. That will be the end of that!

As for the ceiling, that has nothing to do with the other wall. If you are feeling hard, rip it down buy some new ½ inch taper edged plasterboard and put a new ceiling up. You do not have to use 8x4 sheets you can use plasterboard laths which are a lot smaller, though if you use 8x4’s make a “dead man” which is a piece of 2”x2” “T” shaped that is so cut that it can rest on the floor whilst holding the other end of plasterboard up whilst you nail it.. When putting down plasterboard always stagger the joints so as to avoid cracking, once again use plasterboard filler and tape the joints with paper tape. You should really then skim the ceiling because the skim holds the plasterboard taught and helps greatly in stopping sagging. Nowadays it is rarely done because it is another corner to cut, but a skimmed ceiling is far superior.
 
It sounds to me like the chimney breast alcoves have just been boxed in. Just take them out if that is the case. If not, hack back the render and fasten steel mesh across the crack. Re-render and skim.


joe
 
As joe-90 rightly said expanding metal will also do a good job. On a side note have you entertained the idea of removing the walls and getting the coves back? You could re-line them and hang shelves/ cupboards or something! Sometimes these fireside coves can provide quite a bit of extra useful space.

One other thing, you should really have a vent where the old fireplace has been boxed off and a vented chimney cap to create a through draught, so as to stop condensation up the chimney.
 
thank you for all your comments, just to give a little more background...

There has never been a fireplace in that room, the chimney is from the fireplace in the lounge directly below. Also, there are no alcoves to uncover as these are in the bedroom on the other side of the wall

If you were looking at the walls from above it would looks as follows...

[code:1]
crack here |
(Bedroom in pictures) / |
\/ |
---------------------------------z-----------------
D I V I D |I N G | W A L L |
--------------------| |-----------------
| | |
| CHIMNEY | |
| | |
| | |
============== |
(Another Bedroom)[/code:1]
 
So we are looking at the rear of the breast that is on the other side of the partition wall? All the same the way to fix it remains. But if you just don't want it there anymore go up into the loft and make sure the wall is not supporting anything (water tank etc) and just knock it down and put some studwork up and plasterboard it. This is just a basic partition wall that has been slung up and has nothing to do with anything structural. What I do find odd though is the fact that the abutment walls either side of the breast are not tied in to the actual breast, when you build a breast the usual practice is to build the abutments and breast as one entity. Maybe in the past someone had knocked the original wall down and opened up the two rooms and then at a later date someone rebuilt it again without tying it in. Is the wall on the other side of the breast tied in?

All the same it is easy to check whether the wall has any structural properties by having a look above it, if not then you can safely do what you please with it. You have mentioned that it is bedded directly onto the floorboards? If so then that's a clear sign of a later addition and is not representative of the original build. Probably your local jolly bodger slung it up in the seventies or something.

I personally would either sort the crack out as mentioned above, or remove it and put up plasterboarded studwork, you could also remove it sling a profile up against the return of the breast (Furfix, Simpson or equivalent) and build another wall out of lightweight Thermalite's setting it back into the cove so it sits directly on the head of the wall beneath for peace of mind. You will have a small return on the firebreast but I like angles, add intrigue to a room.
 

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