Cracks in the walls: bad?

[ktzmoh]

Over the course of the winter, our walls have developed cracks in one spot. They are vertical, but they go from the wall up into the ceiling. They aren't jagged, stair patterned or diagonal, but still, they freak me out. We have a contractor coming to check them out. But I'm hoping y'all can put me at ease until captain contractor crushes us with bad news.

The inspector who looked at the house before we bought it didn't say anything about foundation damage, and we are on a hill, so we have good natural drainage. Is it feasible that cracks are frOm changing seasons? Can a 50 year old house still be settling? They are on the second floor of a split level house, if that matters. And we don't see any cracks developing in the family room underneath.

[Deleted]

I'd say it's pretty normal. Here in the Midwest where seasons, humidity and temperature fluctuate to the extreme every house from my seven year old one, to my MILs 30 year old one to my parents 110 year old one all develop new cracks once in awhile.

[tarheels]

If it's perfectly straight up and down, it sounds like a drywall seam to me.

[tarheels]

If it's perfectly straight up and down, it sounds like a drywall seam to me, which is NBD at all. You can google for the types of cracks to be worried about.

[jloww]

Mar 10, 2013 7:07:03 GMT -5 @justdairy said:

I'd say it's pretty normal. Here in the Midwest where seasons, humidity and temperature fluctuate to the extreme every house from my seven year old one, to my MILs 30 year old one to my parents 110 year old one all develop new cracks once in awhile.

Exactly.  Our house was built in 1928 and I find new cracks every day.  We also have plaster, not sure if that cracks easier than drywall.

[aweilba]

Our house is 9 years old, and we've got settlement cracks in a few places.  From what I know, in my area settlement cracks are very common.  I live in Central IL, and pretty much everybody I know who owns a house has them; it's got something to do with the soil in the area that causes all of the houses to settle pretty quickly, from my understanding.  I don't worry about it too much because all of the houses in my area have them.

[ktzmoh]

Hm. Well maybe it's not so bad. I guess I've just never seen cracks in houses I've lived in- and we really don't have huge temperature shifts- no hard freezes, for example. But we did have a couple if small earthquakes this winter that woke us up in the night- I wonder if that's the culprit? I think we'll still have someone come out though. Our friends just found out they had major foundation issues. Scary! I don't want any part of that.

[TBM]

Mar 10, 2013 19:58:31 GMT -5 ktzmoh said:

 But we did have a couple if small earthquakes this winter that woke us up in the night- I wonder if that's the culprit?

We have had some funny things caused by earthquakes in the past (at our old condo...this house was built with earthquake ties and we have only felt two good sized earthquakes in 19 years), so earthquake was my first thought for your issue.

Apparently the whole condo was out of whack (we just thought the kids screwed up the door to their bathroom because of humidity, etc.), caused by one earthquake, because the Northridge quake totally fixed that issue and couple of other things that we thought were just poor workmanship.lol

My business partner's house has a ridge in the floor in a bedroom that showed up after the Northridge quake in '94, but they were told that it isn't an issue. ^o)    

[ktzmoh]

Mar 10, 2013 20:31:14 GMT -5 TBM said:

Mar 10, 2013 19:58:31 GMT -5 ktzmoh said:

 But we did have a couple if small earthquakes this winter that woke us up in the night- I wonder if that's the culprit?

We have had some funny things caused by earthquakes in the past (at our old condo...this house was built with earthquake ties and we have only felt two good sized earthquakes in 19 years), so earthquake was my first thought for your issue.

Apparently the whole condo was out of whack (we just thought the kids screwed up the door to their bathroom because of humidity, etc.), caused by one earthquake, because the Northridge quake totally fixed that issue and couple of other things that we thought were just poor workmanship.lol

My business partner's house has a ridge in the floor in a bedroom that showed up after the Northridge quake in '94, but they were told that it isn't an issue.     

SO funny you mentioned that last part, because we have a huge ridge in the floor of the basement family room - it's on the seam where the original house ends and a 1970s addition begins. we were told it wasn't a big deal, the neighbors said it was there for as long as they can remember, and we asked the inspector to look specifically at that issue (it's under carpet, but you can totally feel it).  I assumed that it was just either poor workmanship, a body, buried treasure or the addition settling - but now maybe I'm thinking it was the 1989 earthquake? Huh. We have someone coming out in a few weeks or April to level the floor and replace the carpeting, so I guess we'll get a better look.

We also have someone coming out to give us a quote to do some retrofitting this summer, so maybe we should have that dude have a look too.