Cracks in shed wall

[Chapster]

Hi,

Got an outside brick shed, not attached to house. It's about 5m by 3m square, built with single brick course and has flat roof which seems to be made of metal beams running from one 3m wall to the other, rendered on underside, concrete on top. It's divided as per the layout picture below. Outer stone chipping covered render is in terrible condition, blown, cracked and falling off in places. Worse after the ice last winter. Also render has been patched by someone before we bought the house (3 years ago) all along about the middle of the front wall (wall nearest this text in my picture) so I want to knock back and render again, but this needs sorting first. Oh, and roof is leaking along front and is my first job.

Where I've noted on image, and in the subsequent pictures you'll see that there is a long crack where the bricks have pulled away from each other. Shed is built on a concrete slab and this seems intact. To me, it looks like the front wall is pulling away around the middle and it's pulled part of the wall joined to it away, while the other part has stayed put and cracked at the meeting line.

Anyone know if this is likely what's happening, what might have caused it, and what repair strategy is best for someone cash-strapped but not too bad at basic building jobs?

Thanks (pics follow)

 

[merlin50]

looks like an old brick ****e house, it looks as the internal wall is not tied into the external wall. can not see it moving any more, do not worry about it

 

[Chapster]

Ok, don't see why you felt the need to say what it looked like. Haven't seen any old brick sh*te houses, I'm not that old, but I'll take your word for it. It was built in the 1950s incidentally, which may explain a lot about its appearance and the whitewashing the bricks incurred from the previous owners...

It was tied in to the front wall every 5 or 6 courses with half of a brick extending into the front wall. At the top you'll see that to the left of the crack is a whole brick, then half a brick underneath. That half brick is a whole brick that extends into the front wall. What's happened is the mortar around the tie in brick has let go, so it's no longer tied.

Near the bottom of the larger crack below is another tie-in brick that has sheared in half, so half is still in the front wall, half in the wall meeting it. Basically the tie in bricks have stopped doing their job one way or another. Either sheared or pulled out of the mortar around them.

There are no other cracks anywhere in the building, so I don't think the internal wall has moved anywhere. It looks like the external front wall has moved away which surely it shouldn't? What if the internal partition hadn't been made, to create one large open space instead? Another thing which makes me think the external wall has moved is the large patch of render applied mid-height up the front wall and extending across most of the length of the shed, as though the original render cracked and blew, which is what would happen if the wall started bowing out.

 

[merlin50]

nothing wrong with it being a brick ****e house, they were never built that well. look at the outside wall and see if there is a bow in it, if not it will be the inner wall that has dropped. the other small room would have been the coal store with a very heavy amount of coal in it.

 

[Chapster]

Thanks for the suggestion. If I do find the outer wall is bowed, is there a relatively cheap repair procedure, or is the shed then inherently unsafe and will need knocking down? All in all it's in bad condition, but I want to try to get it improved economically. My main concern is water has been running off the roof straight into the front wall because the front facia and felt was in pieces when we bought the place. The mortar between the bricks still seems tough and can't be scratched away, but something must have made the wall bow if it has.

It's hard to tell with the blown render, but it does look to be bowing out, and the external front wall render added to the middle looks like it covered where the old render popped off from the movement.

I did wonder if the inner wall might have dropped, but it's built on top of the concrete flooring slab, and that looks intact throughout. I made a mistake before... the outer walls go below ground level, and the concrete slab is only inside the walls to make up a floor, so the exterior walls aren't on the slab. All interior walls are built directly on the slab though. Don't know if that has a bearing.

 

[merlin50]

if the cracked wall is not load bearing i would knock it down along with the other internal wall, if the outer wall has a bow in it i would build a pillar on the inside using the old bricks. no way would i knock it down

 

[Chapster]

Might seem like a simple question, but in a shed like this, how would I determine if an internal wall is loadbearing?

 

[merlin50]

do the metal beams run from one side to the other or are they supported by the internal wall