Soggy bricks (at the corner of a house)

[tallbox]

Hello! I'm new here, but I've been reading for ages.

We've been living in a house for 7 years, and for the last two years, the entire house has developed thin cracks on the walls and ceilings, including the exterior. This prompted me to start investigating. The first thing I checked was the outside drains.

I suspect that due to the heat from the past two summers and my neglect in inspecting our open drain, which is fed by kitchen and washing machine waters and someone cut the pipe 10 cm short the water was seeping not into the drain but beside it, digging out a significant amount of soil and creating a swamp-like area full of water.

While waiting for the weather to settle, I've extended the pipe to ensure it drains inside the drain where it should be. I then started assessing the damage caused. In the photos, it's visible that for some reason, the building (built in 1960) has a 20 cm gap of soil, followed by some patio slabs. All of that soil is consistently wet. When I removed some of it near the cracked cement where it enters the bricks, I found that the surrounding bricks are soggy too, and I was able to chip away parts of them by hand. However, not all bricks are affected in this manner, only a few.

What are my options?

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

 

[^woody^]

Thin cracks are normally thermal relating to the internal and external atmosphere.

Bricks in the ground will all ways be soggy. More so in winter.

 

[tallbox]

Thin cracks are normally thermal relating to the internal and external atmosphere.

Bricks in the ground will all ways be soggy. More so in winter.

Thanks, but why 5 years prior there were no cracks at all and all of a sudden - cracks?

I think the water issue caused foundation settlement to some degree around that part of the house hence all cracks internally (even around bay windows) and externally are on that side only (semi-detached).

Something that I missed in the message was that we have a slight damp issue in the kitchen's corner, where the drain issue is too. The wall inside is not wet, but occasionally on the floor we get black mould, and that started in 2021-2022 hence I suspected the drain to be causing moisture, but since I am a complete noob in this matter, wanted to check this with the people from this forum.

 

[noseall]

Thanks, but why 5 years prior there were no cracks at all and all of a sudden - cracks?

I think the water issue caused foundation settlement to some degree around that part of the house hence all cracks internally (even around bay windows) and externally are on that side only (semi-detached).

Something that I missed in the message was that we have a slight damp issue in the kitchen's corner, where the drain issue is too. The wall inside is not wet, but occasionally on the floor we get black mould, and that started in 2021-2022 hence I suspected the drain to be causing moisture, but since I am a complete noob in this matter, wanted to check this with the people from this forum.

Leaky drains - especially if they are the old salt glaze flavour.

 

[tallbox]

Leaky drains - especially if they are the old salt glaze flavour.

It does look like to be salt glazed drain

 

[^woody^]

Thanks, but why 5 years prior there were no cracks at all and all of a sudden - cracks?

That's the most common thing people say. "I've been here 50 years, and not one crack, then .... "

And the answer is, every single week and combination of weeks has different weather and the heating and cooking and bathing is different too.

Back in the late 2000's people were sitting in the back gardens enjoying lovely hot spring sunshine and were hearing and seeing there walls crack there and then.