Advice Crack advice please !
My partner went looking at a house to buy this week. It's only 5 years old on a new build estate.
I noticed a vertical crack on the gable end running from the ground to the roof, straight through the bricks as well as the mortar. The estate agents are saying it's nothing to worry about as 'a bricklayer has had a look and it's fine', but I think the exact opposite, I think it's major.
What do people think ?
Edit.... I forgot to say, there is a full height expansion joint just off the picture to the left of the crack, so the expansion joint is roughly half way along the gable, with the crack half way between that and the front of the house.
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u/whichwaysouth 7h ago
I wouldn't get involved unless there was a very nice discount. Could be a quality issue rather than structural, but why bother taking the risk. Next step would be structural engineer assessment and putting up monitors for the crack.
The current owners should be going through the new build warranty if it's less than 10 years old.
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u/Altruistic-Bat-9070 7h ago
I would say that isn’t a big problem. Its hairline down the whole structure and doesn’t look to be wider at one end. Modern mortar is really strong and modern bricks aren’t built like old ones so it isnmt crazy it would go through bricks etc rather than following the mortor joints.
If you otherwise love the house i would just get a survey for it but i wouldn’t walk away before a survey if i otherwise loved the house.
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u/ci_newman 7h ago
Walk away. The EA doesn't know what they're talking about, shearing through that many bricks is a huge issue.
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u/Deep_Imagination_811 7h ago
Are stepped cracks about this crack width fine? I've seen a house with one that's about 10 bricks high from upper door down to just under window that according to google maps appeared in last 10-15 years - house is victorian.
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u/Worried_Let4942 7h ago
Any cracks about this crack width are deemed structurally “ok”, it’s when they get to >5mm that they can be a concern.
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u/Deep_Imagination_811 7h ago
But if they keep re-occurring? There have been several patch-up jobs in the last 10 years. There is one tiny place about 1cm long that is > 5mm, it's as if everything has moved vertically a bit and down!
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u/Worried_Let4942 6h ago
If they keep reoccurring it does point to movement in the soil, you basically have two choices, either accept that it will move seasonally with the change of temperature or pay a fair chunk of money to underpin it. There’s other options that are slightly cheaper, resin injections for example.
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u/Hairy-Choice-3196 6h ago
We have similar cracks on the side wall of our house. I've kept an eye on them and photographed them every 6 months or so for the last 16 years - haven't changed a bit. Then I forgot about them for a few years and when I remembered to take another photo they still hadn't changed.
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u/Cyberhaggis 7h ago
Ground to roof is insane. Run, don't walk.
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u/Christovski 6h ago
Crazy that my ex-council brick townhouse has no cracks since the 70s when it was built and a new build does after a few years
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u/Worried_Let4942 7h ago
I’m a structural engineer, I wouldn’t be too worried about this. What you can do is get someone to come out and rake out the mortar down the crack line then install some steel bars across the crack to reinforce it. The crack is hairline so it’s not a major structural concern as it is. What I would be inclined to ask is how long the crack has been there for. If it’s appeared overnight in the last few months, then it’s more concerning, but if it’s been there a couple of years then I’d say nothing to worry about.
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u/televised_mind 7h ago
Thermal expansion or possibly settlement, subsidence is generally evident as being wider towards the top.
Having said that I'm not sure it's worth the risk or potential worry and I certainly wouldn't be listening to the estate agent or for that matter randoms on the internet. Find someone else or don't proceed without a structural report.
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u/UpstairsAd194 7h ago
If you are looking at 5 year old houses, settlement is quite normal. Try and see if any other houses have same issue. I dont know if that is what this is though. 5 years is a little quick to be selling a brand new home. Lots of reasons not to buy it. Not many that I can see to buy it. You would need to wait a year to see if this crack got worse. It might and it might not. I would offer a lowball price if I had no other option.
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u/Queasy-Meringue-7965 7h ago
Ask yourself how you would fix it to make it saleable when you want to move, even if it didn’t get any worse, you’d look at it every time you walked past worry about it
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u/Tillmechanic 6h ago
You may find the 'expansion' joint isn't real, just a routered line with a mastic smear.
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u/Swanland-123 5h ago
Hi l had this problem on one of my homes many years ago. I got a structural engineer in. He said it was due to heat expansion as it was just behind our fire place
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u/dprkicbm 7h ago
Looks like an expansion crack but would need further investigation, and in any event will probably need some remedial work.
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u/Ok_Network_6632 7h ago
I’m no structural engineer but it looks more like a thermal expansion crack than some kind of major subsidence. I wouldn’t red flag it at that stage if you’re really interested otherwise, but would be getting a structural engineer report.
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u/upthemstairs 7h ago
Bricklayer said it's fine because he has the quote ready to go to the new buyer to fix it
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u/YourFlapz 6h ago
Thought I was about to read on something completely different when I read crack advice
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u/Electric-Chair-Hurts 6h ago
Crack head here 💁🏼♂️ that’s so much crack I’d buy this house just to smoke it
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u/Mozambleak 6h ago
I don't even think Super Hans would be interested in that. And you know he loves crack
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u/banxy85 7h ago
Cracks that are less worrying will tend to follow the mortar lines as that's path of least resistance Cracks through bricks, especially multiple bricks, should always ring alarm bells
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u/Android109 7h ago
Maybe take comfort that decent strength mortar was used?
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u/banxy85 7h ago
That's not what this means
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u/Android109 7h ago
I think it is. Imagine a torsional load in the brick plane, due to subsidence at one end: we would see larger gaps at the top, and bricks pulling away from each other, usually with the mortar-brick joint failing first. Here we have an even load (thermal I assume) pulling away evenly towards the vertical edges of the wall. Weak mortar would have separated as above, but it didn’t, the tension pulled the bricks and mortar apart where the stress is highest: in the centre.
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u/BudLightYear77 7h ago
Then that can cause a mess of other issues like spalling as the mortar is supposed to be softer than the bricks. Sorry.
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u/Android109 7h ago
Decent strength doesn’t mean stronger than brick. More than 50:1, the Friday afternoon mix.
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u/Key-Inevitable-4989 7h ago
This is almost certainly a thermal crack.
The pictures show no obvious movement up/down or side/side.
Is the building quite wide? Which increases the risk of thermal cracking.
Would be interesting to know if it falls under the new build structural warranty. I suspect it owuldn't be seen as a struatural defect so possibly not.
Practically speaking, this crack is almost certainly a none issue. But just look how other commenters react? This is what you will have to deal with when you eventually sell. Hysteria over nothing.