Crack between house and extension

[Ipan]

Hello,

I am looking into buying a town house built in late 60s. It has an extension (1st floor) built in 1980 and another one on top of it built in 2000.

During the viewing I noticed that there is a crack between the main building and the first floor extension. The second floor looks okay.

Before making an offer I want to know if this can be something serious or if it is just normal settlement.

The crack is only on one side of the building. The other side looks okay. Furthermore inside the second floor of the extension, it looks like the floor is separating from the wall, but again I am not sure if this is normal or not.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[berty3000]

The extension on my house is connected in the same way with that unsightly "stitching" between different coloured and sized bricks. In my case, the house was built in 1961 and the extension in 1973. The bricks went from imperial to metric sizes I think, and are different colours.

I don't think there's anything wrong on the outside. At worst, it looks like some repointing might help with the small gaps in the mortar. There aren't any cracks to be seen after 40 years, probably fine. The kind of actual cracks to be worried about would be wider and running through the wall in an irregular way - reflecting settlement or subsidence, or other structural problems - not some pointing along the join where two structures were connected.

The photo of the inside - if that were on the ground floor, I'd think it was some very minor and normal settlement of the sub base. On the second floor I'm not sure, but it might be something quite superficial to do with how the skirting board and/or flooring were fitted. Looks minor anyway. Worth bearing in mind that even the newest extension has been in place for 23 years. Anything nasty would probably be apparent by now.

Just my two pennies. What does your surveyor think?

 

[^woody^]

That's common with that type of poor work, but that's not to say that movement is not occurring. Get a suitable survey.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

I'd grind out the whole mortar joint and put some flexible sealant in its place, job done. It should have been done as a vertical movement joint in the first place, instead of this failed attempt at making them stick together despite 100 tons of new extension settling into place. Movement is going to be inevitable.

Good to see the padstone for the big steel joist and the weep vent (slot) above it. Don't fill this up, you could insert some proper plastic weep vents to make it prettier though.

That floor probably sank a week after fitting and hasn't moved since. You could put a long spirit level across it to see if it's sunk in the middle, but most concrete floors do this eventually anyway, as they're often built on top of soil.

 

[Ipan]

Just my two pennies. What does your surveyor think?

I haven't had a survey yet because I wanted to check first if they are potential serious issues because I make an offer.

That floor probably sank a week after fitting and hasn't moved since. You could put a long spirit level across it to see if it's sunk in the middle, but most concrete floors do this eventually anyway, as they're often built on top of soil.

This is not ground floor. It is on the second floor. The extension has a first and second floor only. I attach a picture from the front side of the extension.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

Just do what I did when buying our house with a loft conversion - go for a viewing and jump up and down in the room, see what happens.

It gave the estate agent a bit of a shock, but we bought it.

It's definitely not pretty, but the steel joists, padstone and weep vent slots suggest it was done by someone who had a good idea of what they were doing.

There should be a planning or building control record of the 2000 extension, you should be able to hunt this out on the council's planning search website.

The seller may have paperwork, you should ask about it.