I have noticed a number of hairline cracks that have appeared along the walls and ceiling of my house and am wondering how concerned I should be. The cracks are mainly appearing on the ceiling, particularly in corners of rooms along the edges where the coving meets the ceiling, and along the joins in the coving itself. There are also one or two long cracks running across the ceiling in different rooms (in the direction of the ceiling joists), but these generally emanate from one of the other cracks in the ceiling/coving joins. In two rooms there are cracks that run from the ceiling to the top of the door frame, and also some around window sills. The cracks are more apparent upstairs, but I have noticed a couple on the ground floor as well. The upstairs bathroom on the rear of the house seems to be worst affected, and was the first room I noticed these appearing. The coving in this room is coming away from the wall, as is the plasterboard boxing around the waste pipe.
I believe most of these have appeared since we bought the house, and whilst in our ownership we have invested heavily in the upgrade of the insulation and heating (replaced old single-glazed windows throughout, cavity wall & loft insulation installed, replaced conventional boiler with a combi). I also boarded out the loft, which wasn’t done before, and now use it for storage space – though there is nothing hugely heavy up there, mainly Christmas decorations and empty suitcases and boxes etc. In addition we fitted an over-bath electric shower in the bathroom where there was none before (no extractor as the room has an opening window). The house was vacant for over a year before we bought it, so was extremely cold inside for a good while.
Though the previous owner denied any knowledge of it, there is evidence that the house has been previously underpinned at the rear, and resulting repair jobs to the pointing and brickwork have remained sound. I’ve not noticed any exterior cracks.
It may be completely unrelated, but we’ve also noticed evidence of greasy liquid trails down a couple of the upstairs walls. No evidence of any kind of water leak is apparent (nor is there any pipework in both areas), and the affected walls don’t appear to have anything in common, apart from being upstairs and on different sides of the same room (one in bedroom 1 - external wall, one in bedroom 2 – internal wall shared with bedroom 1). I had previously believed the last owner had splashed something up the wall, until we discovered a new set of drip trails in the bedroom one day. It appears to come from beneath the coving join, but there were no signs of moisture on the ceiling and very little liquid present. We’ve only seen this one ‘fresh’ occurrence in the 2 years we’ve lived in the house.
From what I’ve read online it seems like the cracks could be a result of shrinkage caused by the change in heating behaviour, though I would welcome advice on any of the issues above.
I believe most of these have appeared since we bought the house, and whilst in our ownership we have invested heavily in the upgrade of the insulation and heating (replaced old single-glazed windows throughout, cavity wall & loft insulation installed, replaced conventional boiler with a combi). I also boarded out the loft, which wasn’t done before, and now use it for storage space – though there is nothing hugely heavy up there, mainly Christmas decorations and empty suitcases and boxes etc. In addition we fitted an over-bath electric shower in the bathroom where there was none before (no extractor as the room has an opening window). The house was vacant for over a year before we bought it, so was extremely cold inside for a good while.
Though the previous owner denied any knowledge of it, there is evidence that the house has been previously underpinned at the rear, and resulting repair jobs to the pointing and brickwork have remained sound. I’ve not noticed any exterior cracks.
It may be completely unrelated, but we’ve also noticed evidence of greasy liquid trails down a couple of the upstairs walls. No evidence of any kind of water leak is apparent (nor is there any pipework in both areas), and the affected walls don’t appear to have anything in common, apart from being upstairs and on different sides of the same room (one in bedroom 1 - external wall, one in bedroom 2 – internal wall shared with bedroom 1). I had previously believed the last owner had splashed something up the wall, until we discovered a new set of drip trails in the bedroom one day. It appears to come from beneath the coving join, but there were no signs of moisture on the ceiling and very little liquid present. We’ve only seen this one ‘fresh’ occurrence in the 2 years we’ve lived in the house.
From what I’ve read online it seems like the cracks could be a result of shrinkage caused by the change in heating behaviour, though I would welcome advice on any of the issues above.
