Cracks in Ceiling/Wall

Optimus Prime

Hey guys hoping someone might be able to answer this for me, bought a house about 2 years ago, its 3 years old in total, some of the ceilings have cracks in them and one wall too in bathroom. also in the ceiling there are some nails that seem to be coming down and knocking round chips out, its like they where nailed upwards into the ceiling if you know what i mean. now they are not huge cracks or anything, i would describe them as hairline! I was just wondering is my house falling apart or is this a natural occurence in a new house. i was told that it was something to do with the builders painting the ceiling too soon after plastering? i dunno if thats bull or not.. any ideas? any help is appreciated.

winterchickens

Its natural the house is just settling. It happens a lot to newly built or renovated houses. Nothing to worry about. The wall crack should be looked at if it gets worse. Paint or filler will do the trick.
Regards.
Tom.

Optimus Prime

Thanks a million for getting back, its given me peace of mind! appreciate that.

mccaber

If you have a lot of nail craters then your plastering wasn't done by a professional, but too late for that. Cracks down walls are definately something you don't want to see on a block wall, on a partion wall it may be another case of ropey pastering. To fix the hairline cracks use a standard polyfiller (not the polymere stuff; doesn't sand nicely), start by gouging out the crack with a nail, as it will give your filler better purchase to the existing plaster. Hope this helps.

ab20

The nail situation is what they call popping. It happens if there is too much jumping on the ceiling upstairs. Depends on the amount of traffic. If there is cracking in the ceiling as well well then it is probably that the slabbers did not break the joints in the plasterboards when they were fitting. The wall cracks, check that the wall in question is a solid wall or a stud partition wall. If the crack is just in a straight line down then it is probably a situation where they did not use any scrim on the joints. The scrim helps to stop this. It is like a netted tape. If the cracks in the walls are running at any sort of an angle. 20º, 45º or 60º then I think you have a different problem. You see during the good days there were lots of people out there who thought that they knew everything when they really did not know an awful lot. I will PM you with some details and if you need to contact me fine. Hope this Helps.

Optimus Prime

Thanks for the reply, The nail popping is on a few ceilings in the house i thought it might be from the kids jumping on the floor alright but there are a few in the ceilings in the bedrooms too and we are not up in the attic that often. The cracks in the walls are vertical, pretty much straight down, just hairline its not a hard wall either its just a board. its mainly one in the en-suite bathroom and there is a smaller one in the main bedroom not huge or anything.

I got your pm cheers for that i will check out the website.