Multiple cracks In Exterior Masonry (up to 4mm) - Insurance not worried but should they be? with pictures

[Wiltshire45]

Hi All,

Just spoken to my insurer after noticing some fairly significant cracks in the exterior of my property. They did not seem concerned, despite descriptions and measurements, and advised I 'got someone I know' to look at it. I don't know anyone, so wondering if anyone here has any insights.

House is built in 2005, in Swindon, Wiltshire. Soil is clay, and in the summer the soil in the garden cracks notably, big enough cracks in the soil that you could fit your hand in. There are a few small deciduous trees in the garden, maybe 15ft tall, closest is perhaps 5m away from the wall.

I noticed a few hairline cracks appear in the masonry last year with the dry summer, starting from above the window lintel. These were hairline, I have a micrometer and couldn't really measure them. I've just noticed there are now what appear to be significant cracks in the front, rear and side of the house closest to trees. The other wall (away from the garden) has no visible cracks.

I've measured and the largest crack is ~4mm, I'm aware of the BRE guidance that says cracks up to 5mm are 'aesthetic' but the number of these cracks is concerning to me, as the appear on both sides of the house (i.e. as you're looking at the front of the house, there are cracks from the left hand bedroom going stepwise up to the top left of the house, and from the right hand side to the top right). Cracks start at the top of the window on both the ground and second floor on the front of the house. Rear seems less significant but has similar cracking from ground floor windows terminating at second floor. The wall closest to the trees has no windows/entries but does have a crack that rises from the ground and terminates about 15ft up (about 2mm wide). The house is three storeys in total although one of these is in the roof. The exterior wall cracks are new, and have got worse after the wet winter.

There is no obviously parallel cracking in plasterboard inside, although in both corners of the top floor bedroom (i.e. within the roof from front facing photos) there are ~3mm cracks running the height of the room in one corner - this wouldn't necessarily correspond to the exterior cracks and there's no cracking at the 3rd floor level on the garden facing wall.

House is built in 2005, Persimmon/one of the other big builders. We've lived here since 2020 and not noticed any issues before. No building work, extensions or any other work done to the house since 2020 at least.

Any thoughts much appreciated. Obviously quite worried and expected insurance to be too, but they weren't....Happy to provide more photos/videos if they help, I've shown what I think to be the most concerning bit!

Edit: Neighbours have house built in same style, clearly on the same type of soil and no one seems to have cracking like this, although we are probably unique in our trees.

 

[jj4091]

It may well be the trres are causing excessive drying of the clay. But my advice would be to get a proper sructural engineers survey and report done. I don't think there is any urgency but he/she woud be best to advise or reassure you. They do need to be repaired once the cause is established.

 

[Wiltshire45]

It may well be the trres are causing excessive drying of the clay. But my advice would be to get a proper sructural engineers survey and report done. I don't think there is any urgency but he/she woud be best to advise or reassure you. They do need to be repaired once the cause is established.

Hi really appreciate the temporary ability to calm down. Say it was the trees.... Would these cracks get worse and worse every year or is it possible it's got as bad as it's got.... The trees add a huge amount of privacy and probably 25k to the property value - I'd rather just fill in the cracks with appropriate mortar (not too strong) to make the house presentable before I totally removed trees that provide so much privacy.

Basically is the damage done and it won't get any worse - we may not see any summers worse than this one for drought.... Could it be this is as bad as it gets or will it just get worse every summer now?

 

[jj4091]

The survyor will be able to answer your questions. I, nor I think anyone else will be qualified to do that over the internet.

 

[stevie888]

If it is trees then since the wretched things grow then the chances are things will get worse.

5m for a tree is potentialy very close. We look at anything within 30m when designing foundations.

 

[^woody^]

Reconstituted stone is very intolerant of thermal movement and relies on a highly flexible mortar to deal with the normal expansion and contraction of masonry panels.

Those cracks are even, and are in the places where thermal cracking would normally occur.

Any other movement associated with tress or drains would show up as cracking on the inside walls in the same locations. In the absence of which, thermal movement would be the most likely cause. You would need to check your policy to see whether that's an insurance risk for which you are covered.

You need to sort out that water saturation issue from the gutter above the gable corbel. Roof run off is not going into the gutter.

 

[Wiltshire45]

Reconstituted stone is very intolerant of thermal movement and relies on a highly flexible mortar to deal with the normal expansion and contraction of masonry panels.

Those cracks are even, and are in the places where thermal cracking would normally occur.

Any other movement associated with tress or drains would show up as cracking on the inside walls in the same locations. In the absence of which, thermal movement would be the most likely cause. You would need to check your policy to see whether that's an insurance risk for which you are covered.

You need to sort out that water saturation issue from the gutter above the gable corbel. Roof run off is not going into the gutter.

Really appreciate the response. To check, would you expect the cracks in the plaster to perfectly mirror the cracks in the exterior, or just any cracks in the general vicinity?

The are some small cracks in plaster in rooms the other side of the cracks shown but these are hairline and perfectly straight.

I'll get a structural engineer out to have a look but I'm also mindful that I'd be fairly naive to any sales tactics for crack filling etc

 

[^woody^]

For related internal cracking, it would tend to be in the same location and more or less follow the same path. Not up by the ceiling or in some other random place.

Random straight cracks in in plaster tend to be at the at board joints and not really related to structural movement, unless adjacent to the external cracking.

It's more difficult to diagnose as plaster board reacts differently (or not at all) to movement of the wall behind it, but someone experienced should be able to diagnose that from just the external view and a bit of history of how the cracking has developed.