Hi All,
I live in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. The last few years, cracks have started appearing in the walls of the house, inside and outside. The house is 30 years old.
It looks like the house is moving and causing cracking. I know the tile roof is in some decay and needs repointing and cementing - I am organising this now.
I have started to become worried, but am not sure of how to fix the cracking problem. I have considered Archicentre to do a report but they want to charge $500+.
Should I organise a report from Archicentre and act on their recommendations?
Does anybody know of any other organisation that can help me fix my problems?
Does anybody have any advice? What should I do?
Thanks in advance, much appreciated.
We purchased a property with large cracks at the front of the property above windows from top to bottom. Scary stuff.
We called everyone and anyone to assess this including archicentre, more people that got involved in the process the more confused we became.
As it turned out the house was tearing itself apart, the limestone footings had rolled out slightly, the problem was caused over a period of 25 years, water was flowing into the limestone footings allowing movement. There were no soakwells on the property, gutters were inadquate or deteriorated/useless.
We were told to place glass strips? place over the cracks this allowed us to monitor movement, if the glass broke it was still moving. I can tell you this did my head in.
We got rid of the water issue, large soakwells were installed and gutters were replaced, ensured driveway slopped away from house.
We ended up taking the cheapest option which was to rip front part of the brick walls on each side and rebuild using steel rods with mortar and this was wrapped a fair way around the corners. We then had the front tuckpointed, looked perfect.
The combination of all the above solved the problem, no more movement and certainly did not cost a fortune.
As mentioned by others don't do anything until your foundation/structure has been sorted. I personally would get a structural engineer to look at it.
Cheers, MTR