Vertical crack below window

Ritchi

I have just noticed a crack below a window in my spare room. It's coming from the centre of the window down to the ground, and is about 1mm, and is visible both inside and out.

Any suggestions as to how serious it is, and what I can do to fix?

Ritchi

Anyone any ideas?

martinn123

Any Pic's.

Could be a number of things.

Single storey/ 2 storey house?

In the Gable wall, or other?

When you say visible inside and out, is the house, brick, render, dash ? and on the inside presume the plasterboard is cracked?

Ritchi

I'll throw up some pictures later.

It's on the gable pebbled dashed wall of a bungalow.

Ritchi

Actually, here's two pictures. The outside one is not the best, as I took it at night. I'll try take a better one in the daylight.

martinn123

Any idea how the wall is constructed i.e, two leaf's of block 4'' with a cavity, or a single block 9'' ?

How old is the house,

Ritchi

martinn123 wrote: »

Any idea how the wall is constructed i.e, two leaf's of block 4'' with a cavity, or a single block 9'' ?

How old is the house,

I'm not actually sure how it's constructed(we just moved in). It's about 270mm if that helps?

It was built around 1950

martinn123

1950's so possibly a 9'' hollow block especially if you are in Dublin?

The fact that its visible externally and internally, suggests the foundations may have settled, causing the vertical crack.

I saw this recently in an estate, where the houses were built over an old land drain, from when the land was agricultural, the drain had collapsed.

Are you in an estate, and do any adjoining houses have the same problem?

If you just moved in, did you have a survey done, and reference to the crack.

Ritchi

martinn123 wrote: »

1950's so possibly a 9'' hollow block especially if you are in Dublin?

The fact that its visible externally and internally, suggests the foundations may have settled, causing the vertical crack.

I saw this recently in an estate, where the houses were built over an old land drain, from when the land was agricultural, the drain had collapsed.

Are you in an estate, and do any adjoining houses have the same problem?

If you just moved in, did you have a survey done, and reference to the crack.

I'm not sure if any of the other houses have it, but I will ask about to see. I will check to see if the party wall has the same crack too.

Had a survey done, but it wasn't mentioned at all, we are there a few weeks now and have only noticed it ourselves.

Edit: And yes, it's in a mature estate in Dublin

martinn123

Well the fact that its a 1950 house, any settlement in foundations would/should have happened long before now,
Any recent work done on the house, those windows still have the tape on them, was there always a window in that wall?

Anything impact with the wall, its strange that the crack is on both ext/internal, so maybe get the Guy back who did the Survey, or have an engineer take a quick look.

Ritchi

martinn123 wrote: »

Well the fact that its a 1950 house, any settlement in foundations would/should have happened long before now,
Any recent work done on the house, those windows still have the tape on them, was there always a window in that wall?

Anything impact with the wall, its strange that the crack is on both ext/internal, so maybe get the Guy back who did the Survey, or have an engineer take a quick look.

Windows are brand new in, but the crack was there before them. It may be there years, but we only noticed it now. I think I'll get an engineer around to be sure.

Thanks for the help.