Crazing on boundary walls

millsy

I bought a newly built house nearly 3 years ago, part of a 5 house development. Mine is the first house in a row of the 5 houses and has a back boundary wall and 1 side boundary wall.

- The back boundary was a new wall which runs behind all 5 houses, is capped and is not painted.

- The side boundary wall was an existing wall, which the builders plastered. They painted this wall at the front side of the house, and it's unpainted at the back side. It's not capped.

When we first moved in the walls looked ok, apart from a vertical crack on the back wall.

I can't recall the exact timeframe but early on crazing appeared. It is worse after rain but still very evident during dry weather. Over the nearly 3 years we are living there it has worsened. T

Back wall close up.jpg

Back wall.jpg

Side wall close up.jpg

he back wall is by far the worst. The other side of this back wall is a carpark. It is painted dark grey and the crazing is visible through this.

The side wall at the front of the house, which is painted does not look bad but the crazing is visible.

I attached some photos I took today showing the back wall and the back side wall. The vertical crack on the right was one of the original cracks. Does this crazing (assuming I'm correct using this term) look normal?

I got the builders to come out yesterday. They banged the walls with their keys and said the walls are not hollow, and that there is nothing wrong with the walls. They also said this is very common and what I need to do is to powerwash and paint the walls and they will be fine.

They are not going to rectify the problem so I'm wondering now if I need to take legal action against them to get the issue fixed, or if I should take their advice and paint the walls. I don't work in the building industry so I don't know if this is common or if it was due to a bad plaster mix. BTW the back wall behind all 5 houses have the same problem.

Attached Files:

funkey_monkey

I wonder do you need expansion joints cut into the wall to stop this from happening?

What lengths are the walls?

millsy

There are various lengths. That back wall is maybe 6m. The side wall is long, it runs the length of the front and back gardens. There's another small wall connecting the side wall to the side gate, maybe 2m.

PMBC

See post by defaglio 2015 for similar. I've no great expertise on plastering but suspect it is due to dry background, inadequately prepared substrate or very quick drying

millsy

Did a search for defaglio but no matches

funkey_monkey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117885192#Comment_117885192

Can't find it either - can you link it?