Hairline cracks EVERYWHERE

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24 May 2021
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Hi Guys,

House built in 1955. Most walls in the hosue have internal render (not sure how old!)

Since I came back from my holidays 2 weeks ago I am noticing hairline cracks on the internal walls and at joint between walls and ceilings. the house was left unheated for 2 weeks as we did not want to waste energy. Now I keep seeing cracks everywhere.

First I noticed them at the joint between Ceilings and wall. But I understand these can be quite normal, but they are in every single upstairs room, all round the room. I initially got worried that maybe the ceilings are about to collapse, but they appear normal. I even checked the joists in the ceiling all fine.

Then I started noticing cracks in the walls. These are all hariline cracks, but are getting longer! See these images (one original, the other one I increased the contrast to show the crack)#

Render around these cracks do sound hollow.

Previous owners have put wall paper all around the kitchen walls due to cracks, I have completely taken down the render and put new plasterboards. No issues in the kitchen.

My questions are:
1) Is it possible that these cracks appeared due to the fact we have not heated the house for 2 weeks?
2) Is there something wrong happening with the house? We have knocked down a wall between the kitchen and dinner exactly a year ago. It was not WB. The ceiling and walls in the kitchen appears to be fine. We have also done our garden and installed some field drainage, could this have changed the ground around the house hence these changes? It's a clay soil.
3) Should I try to fix these cracks or the best way is to take the wall down and install plasterboards? Is there a chance the render may completely detach itself from the wall if I leave it alon?
 
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You should have requested the 3 hour service in the OP.

Thermal cracks due to the rapid changes in temperature and humidity. Unless the plaster is falling off, treat as minor decoration and use filler
 
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No, unless my neighbour did some DIY when we were not around. I did walk on the beams in the loft, which I guess could cause some cracks betwenn wall and ceiling, but otherwise no heavy work.
 
Every material has a coefficient of thermal expansion, e.g. iron ~.01 mm/deg/m , wood .03, uPVC .08 which means materials expand and contract all the time. If you have 2 dissimilar materials close together, something has to give when temperature changes significantly.

We have an iron bar in our 2m wide chimney breast supporting a shallow arch. .01 x 2 x 20 degrees means it expands and contracts typically 0.4mm over a 20 degree temp range. We get hairline cracks. Nowt I can do.
 

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