I’d appreciate others opinion on this. I hired a guy to do some repairs around my house, including repairing a long hairline crack running up the wall in my lounge. There had previously been a double doorway there between a dining room and kitchen but this was blocked up in 2019 when I had an extension built and the kitchen/dining area was moved. At the other side of the blocked up wall is now a shower room.
Initially the hairline crack repair looked fine. I realise now though that I should have waited longer for the paint to dry in properly before paying, as once dry, the crack was still visible/had reappeared. The guy did initially come back twice - the 1st time to fix a problem with one of the other repairs he did. While here, he also put another coat of paint over the failed hairline crack repair. This didn’t help and he came back a 2nd time to supposedly fix it.
I sent him a message to say it still hadn’t worked and that my neighbour had mentioned to me that the proper way to fix a hairline crack is to gouge out the crack to make it bigger then fill the bigger hole and sand down.
He has replied saying - “I have tried multiple methods to repair this crack, the first being the scraping out of the old crack and filling with a semi-flexible filler which is the method I have used many times before without any issues and is the proper approach. I have then tried filling with a flexible painters caulk”. He also says he believes - “that when the doorway was patched over by the builders they did not support the frame and the new plasterboard meaning that when people are moving around upstairs the movement between the plasterboard and the studs is causing the joints to crack”.
He says he’s starting to lose money on the job so won’t be coming back. He wasn’t cheap - he charged me £520 for the list of repairs I gave him which originally took him about 6 hours. £130 of that was for the hairline crack. I have no problem paying decent money for a professional, high quality repair but to me it looks like a botch job. It is not smooth and just looks like there’s layers of paint slapped on to try to hide the crack.
I’m going to go back to him to say that I’m certainly not happy with the finish, but I’m wondering if anyone can tell me if his explanation of the movement upstairs causing the crack to keep reappearing is plausible. I’m not sure if he’s being dishonest about having properly gouged out the old crack. I’m wondering if he’s hoping he can just fob me off as I’m a middle aged woman and as you can tell, I don’t really know much about these things!
I’m not sure how well it’ll show up in photos, but I’ll attach a couple anyway. The finish is really poor.
Sorry about the long post but I wanted to give as much info as possible. Thanks in advance for any advice.
Initially the hairline crack repair looked fine. I realise now though that I should have waited longer for the paint to dry in properly before paying, as once dry, the crack was still visible/had reappeared. The guy did initially come back twice - the 1st time to fix a problem with one of the other repairs he did. While here, he also put another coat of paint over the failed hairline crack repair. This didn’t help and he came back a 2nd time to supposedly fix it.
I sent him a message to say it still hadn’t worked and that my neighbour had mentioned to me that the proper way to fix a hairline crack is to gouge out the crack to make it bigger then fill the bigger hole and sand down.
He has replied saying - “I have tried multiple methods to repair this crack, the first being the scraping out of the old crack and filling with a semi-flexible filler which is the method I have used many times before without any issues and is the proper approach. I have then tried filling with a flexible painters caulk”. He also says he believes - “that when the doorway was patched over by the builders they did not support the frame and the new plasterboard meaning that when people are moving around upstairs the movement between the plasterboard and the studs is causing the joints to crack”.
He says he’s starting to lose money on the job so won’t be coming back. He wasn’t cheap - he charged me £520 for the list of repairs I gave him which originally took him about 6 hours. £130 of that was for the hairline crack. I have no problem paying decent money for a professional, high quality repair but to me it looks like a botch job. It is not smooth and just looks like there’s layers of paint slapped on to try to hide the crack.
I’m going to go back to him to say that I’m certainly not happy with the finish, but I’m wondering if anyone can tell me if his explanation of the movement upstairs causing the crack to keep reappearing is plausible. I’m not sure if he’s being dishonest about having properly gouged out the old crack. I’m wondering if he’s hoping he can just fob me off as I’m a middle aged woman and as you can tell, I don’t really know much about these things!
I’m not sure how well it’ll show up in photos, but I’ll attach a couple anyway. The finish is really poor.
Sorry about the long post but I wanted to give as much info as possible. Thanks in advance for any advice.
