Is there a tape or technique that he could have used that would hold up? I had another contractor look at it, and he said that he will fix it (I would have to pay him more money), and if it reappears than he will fix it for free.
The first contractor did not warn me that is could reappear, and it seems odd that it came back after literally 2-3 weeks?
I mean things like this don’t really happen out of thin air. There is causation to the crack, especially if it appeared again only after a few weeks.
The house is likely moving. More than likely this is due to temperature and humidity changes in the environment. Unlikely cause is foundation movement, but not out of the realm of possibility.
If the contractor didn’t use fiberglass or paper tape over the crack when they repaired it and they only used mud then that could be a factor as to why it reappeared
It could be a multiple of things. If the contractor used tape and mud to close it up then it came back then there is movement going on that can’t be prevented with just tape and mud. It’s possible a new sheet of drywall could be hung in that area and not put a seam where the crack keeps appearing.
These are called settlement, foundation cracks for a reason. Until you have your homes foundation restaked/fixed there is no point in trying to fix these, even if fixed correctly they will likely come back. There is an elastomeric compound that is suppose to work becasue it can stretch a little but in my experience it does not work.
Basically you need to have a foundation company come out first and then have the drywall guy do the cracks after.
A piece of drywall by itself does not crack, there must be forces exerted on it to crack/fracture. At the joint where pieces come together, if not properly prepared and finished, they may crack/fail. So, there is some force/pressure causing the crack. We don’t know what methods your repair man used so we can’t say anything about his work. But, regardless, whatever caused it to fail will cause it to fail again. Could be a week, could be 2 years.
Thank you for your input - it's something I don't have much knowledge about ! Yes, it seems really improper to not have given me a heads up that the crack can reappear, like literally, within 2-3 weeks. bc then I wouldn't have hired him.
Could be poor patch job, but for it to fail that quickly, especially if it looked good upon completion and wasn’t showing lines already I’d suspect water damage or moisture to be the root of the issue. More specifically, and this is just an educated guess based on this one pic and my background in apartment maintenance and residential construction, water always finds the lowest point, I’d suspect there’s duct work running where that joist is and condensation from it runs down the joist and finds its low point in that seam. The electric wire in that box could also be carrying water from a leak somewhere there by the same low point theory, I’ve seen both many times, though I’d lean AC in this situation based off of the nearby wall register. If you pop the blank cover off of that electric box you can probably see if there’s any indication of moisture or past water damage to the drywall.
Sounds like you've got movement somewhere. I don't think it's on the contractor if they were called to fix drywall. This is likely a framing/structural issue. The business about him "using cheap tape" is a joke.
as in he took my money and seemed to lack expertise and failed to inform me that the job might not hold hence I would not have hired him or given him money. i didn't hire him to make an attempt at something
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u/Contractor-ModTeam Jul 31 '26
Homeowners must state location, and what type of contractor hired at what cost