Any solutions for this?

[Robbox]

Just had the stairs and walls painted, there was a crack along the wall where staircase meets wall and I filled that before painting. Now the crack has reappeared and I'm wondering what would be a good longterm solution.
There is no access under the stairs, so I have been thinking to use a few concrete screws to pin the staircase to the wall. Something is moving, but I don't know if it's the staircase or the wall.

See image attached

 

[johnny2007]

Can you access the staircase from underneath?
If so, have a look while someone goes up and down the stairs.
Once you know what's moving you will be able to fix the problem

 

[Deleted member 174758]

What did you fill with? A flexible filler such as decorators acrylic caulk or even better paintable silicone could be the answer if the movement is only slight

 

[Robbox]

What did you fill with? A flexible filler such as decorators acrylic caulk or even better paintable silicone could be the answer if the movement is only slight

I used toupret, maybe that’s why. I think I’ll look at paintable silicone. Thanks.

 

[Robbox]

Can you access the staircase from underneath?
If so, have a look while someone goes up and down the stairs.
Once you know what's moving you will be able to fix the problem

No luck there. Have to do it from above.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

BTW, all I'll say about concrete screws (Thunder bolts?) Is that whilst they work in concrete, fine grained stone (e.g limestone), engineering brick, etc they cant be guaranteed in old brickwork, especially pre-WWI (Victorian/Edwarden and older) stuff. Generally a bit risky to use if you can't see the masonry you are fixing into.

You'd be better off drilling a few 7mm holes, stuffing a couple of brown (7mm) plugs down each of them then fixing using something like #12 x 4in (6.0 x 100mm) screws. Use them a lot on new installs in old buildings, but just don't expect every screw to tighten up just so - if you hit a mortar coarse when drilling they won't necessarily tighten fully, whilst some brickwork (like on my current project) give about 1 in 2 decent fixes because the brick is shockingly poor

As these are visible screws you'll need to countersink the screwheads below the surface and fill with (ideally) a 2-pack filler when you're done. Sand off, prime and touch-in with gloss paint

 

[Robbox]

BTW, all I'll say about concrete screws (Thunder bolts?) Is that whilst they work in concrete, fine grained stone (e.g limestone), engineering brick, etc they cant be guaranteed in old brickwork, especially pre-WWI (Victorian/Edwarden and older) stuff. Generally a bit risky to use if you can't see the masonry you are fixing into.

You'd be better off drilling a few 7mm holes, stuffing a couple of brown (7mm) plugs down each of them then fixing using something like #12 x 4in (6.0 x 100mm) screws. Use them a lot on new installs in old buildings, but just don't expect every screw to tighten up just so - if you hit a mortar coarse when drilling they won't necessarily tighten fully, whilst some brickwork (like on my current project) give about 1 in 2 decent fixes because the brick is shockingly poor

As these are visible screws you'll need to countersink the screwheads below the surface and fill with (ideally) a 2-pack filler when you're done. Sand off, prime and touch-in with gloss paint

It's a 60's house with inner skin of 'concrete block'. We had some work done and the builder said he'd never come across anything so hard! I guess they were the so called breeze block. I also have a few wood plugs, so I could use them instead of filler.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

May be 70kN or denser blocks, the sort used as padstones on some builds, or even be solid concrete blocks. Breeze blocks is a very old fashioned term that you rarely have these days and really refers to the lower grade, medium weight blocks made using materials such as power station ash as a filler in the past. Either way if it"s blockwork and mid to dark grey it almost certainly isn't solid concrete, so I still think that concrete screws would give a questionable fix. Brown plugs and 6.0mm screws will work fine in block work and solid concrete and have the additional advantage of being relatively cheap in comparison to concrete bolts