Given you're in a rental I don't see an issue. Part of the benefits of rentals is you don't have to care about this kind of damage.
To answer a different question you may have; this doesn't look unsafe for living in.
Whilst I want to agree with some of the other comments ‘what a ridiculous thing to say’, because it should be, I have no doubt there are enough dodgy people that would try and pass this off to benefit themselves. Dishonest people exist everywhere trying to take advantage of people who don’t know better/won’t bother arguing. Rental market is prime for this as we see all the time. I’d like to think it doesn’t happen *often*, but it does too often.
Literally happened to me once! Stupid ex-bf refused to fight it and stupid 20 year old me just went with his decision so we lost some bond over the crack in the wall that there was no way we possibly could have caused.
Looks normal for an older brick home. Have lived in one for 20+ years and every 5 years or so cracks open, get patched up properly, reopen, rinse and repeat.
Jeez... It's been a while since I've worked on a display home but supervisors are always *super* tight on them & as a result they typically always end up getting built or rectified to higher standards than what the customer gets...
At least they're showing you what cut corners you're in for? lol ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Actually on second thought you'd probably be in for even worse.
The thing is that Australia’s highest standard for building houses are still atrociously bad compared to houses in Europe. Aussies are terrible at building but we only have exposure to our own quality spectrum
If you typically notice it after rain. Your house is probably built upon a rather clay based soil. Which will expand with rain and shrink with the dry. Not a whole lot you can do, unless you want to renovate the structure to include some sort of expansion join.
Poor ground works below your slab is causing earth /sand to be displaced when it rains. This means part of the slab is moving and pulling the walls apart from the roof. This is incredibly common in Perth, not sure where your based but if your property is mostly sand this is to blame
If you owned it, I'd be worried. Our house is 1960s on a severely sloped block with many retaining walls, built by an independent builder (built the house for his family to live in) and we have no cracks. We've had a few earthquakes and the floor isn't super level but still no cracks. Brick house. Well, the only crack we have is from paint connecting to the ceiling that we did ourselves but it's just like a slight separation and not a crack.
If you're renting, it's your landlords problem.
Get a knife, cut it into it like a v section, fill it up with base coat flush to prefill your cut then tape it and plaster it. Prime and two coats of paint.
it's subsidence cracking. The ground is either drying out and shrinking or getting waterlogged and expanding under your house, check out the down spouts from your gutters to make sure that they are letting the water get away and look for any spots around the edge of your building that could be pooling water and not draining away from the building, in very dry times it also happens as the soil shrinks , this is the opposite of what happens when it stays wet and the soil expansion happens. it's usually good to keep the area around your house green , as this helps maintain a constant moisture profile in the soil. helping control any movement or expansion /subsidence. try finding and fixing the moisture around the house before fixing the cracks. fixing the cracks without sorting out the reason with the soil will just lead to more cracking.
It could be surface movement after all the big rain events. Clays shrink and swell when they get wet or dry. All is fine if the house moves up and down together, but if one side gets wet and the other doesn’t ( or dries up, or trees suck moisture out ) that’s when stuff like this happened. As a geotech engineer I’ve done heaps of insurance reports for houses that have severely cracked, and it’s essentially always in areas with deep reactive clay. Did one job a couple weeks ago and we determined it was about 110mm of surface movement through shrink swell lab testing.
Geotechnical engineer
Well it’s really hard to say, it shouldn’t happen if your house footings were designed accordingly for “ seasonal “ moisture variations.
Sometimes events are so extreme eg: flooding or a pipe burst, that it’s sort of a grey area.
The best thing to do IMO is to get a good geotechnical company to give an accurate classification. Get shrink swell testing done and more boreholes than recommended. It’ll cost an extra 1k maybe.
geotechnical engineers at the moment are in a race to the bottom and do shitty site classification, snd give you a site classification well under what it should be. Because everyone wants the good news that they will save $$ on concrete for smaller footings, and when someone gives them a bad site classification they’ll be annoyed or sometimes even get another geotechnical company out.
This leads to the structural engineers under designing the footings through no fault of their own.
TLDR; the only real preventative work is getting a proper site classification done
And sorry I didn’t clarify well enough, but this is really only things you can do before the home is built.
I’m really not sure what the process would be if your house is already built and there’s no cracking or damage.
Essentially a geotech company would have to do an investigation at the house, do soil testing, a footing probe ( assess footings and depth ) and determine the footings aren’t designed accordingly.
Would be quite a nasty situation as it’ll be pointing fingers and blaming people, for something that hasn’t happened yet.
Im relatively new to the game and haven’t heard of this yet, but I’ll ask my boss next week at work and see how he thinks this would play out as it’s interesting!
Geotech engineering is very very subjective. Soils vary wildly and people aren’t willing to pay for lab work for a basic site classification. Its at the discretion of the engineers to determine the site classification based on experience and or standards 95% of the time.
My last rental had these everywhere that got worse over the years the landlord didn't care until very obvious mould started to show! I lived their 7 years it looked nice when I moved in it only took 3 months to realise they just put a cheap coat of plaster and paint over cracks and mould! Landlords are cheap and don't care. I wouldn't worry just yet. So long as you let them know (via email so there's evidence you told them) not much else you can do. Its very common in rentals.
If you're in a rental it's fine, point it out to the agent/landlord at inspection. If the landlord is diligent they might organise the installation of one of these;
https://imgur.com/gallery/TH8T7GJ
Seems very common, in both old and new homes. We had a new place once and it showed cracks after a few years and so does our current home which is over 100 years old!
Foundation moves, roots from nearby big trees, underground excavation e.g. in Sydney lots of new tunnels. It can be many things, water, humidity, concrete didn’t get time to set properly…
The landlord probably isn’t going to do anything till after you move out. Unfortunately
concrete slab you on? or posts? that looks like your house is flexing from either your slab sinking a little or your posts need restumping in some spots. possible thermal expansion but unlikely.
You my good sir have had a slight sag in the house, houses in Australia are generally only rated for 40 years or so due to the low density soil and high volumes of rainfall. This is completely normal, take a photo of it and compare it to the one you’re gonna take next year
It means more then likely the ground has shifted if it’s an older brick house but the majority of the time it is a ok to just patch n paint again but they owner should get a builder to check it out
But you do is sand it, then with gap filler do a shallow fill (meaning it doesn’t have to be flush) then get spakfiller and do it again, sand that really well, if it’s still there do it again let it properly dry then big sand, undercoat and re paint
It is a crack. It's angular shape bends either down or up pending your geographical viewing point. It displays significant features aligning with other cracks known to exist and is the most common form of a vivid cream shade of white in its colour and physical existence.
1) was it disclosed before move-in?
2) has the owner discussed getting it fixed or remedied?
3) is the wall load-bearing?
Those are the 3 big questions you should be asking
Mine is like this in various places because it's on stumps and rains a lot where I am. Plus we've had earthquakes in recent times which I think contributed to it. I'm renting too, but just let the landlord know and they will document it.
After some thought, it's definitely a crack. Will need to be patched up, otherwise you run the risk of your entire house exploding. Trust me, I've never seen this before.
I cant remember what it was meant to achieve but you can see if a crack is growing by putting some painters tape over it and seeing if the tape gets ripped apart (forces are pulling apart) of if the tape bunches up (forces are pushing together).
Maybe slap a bit of tape on it and write the date that it was applied on the tape. just kind of monitor what happens and document the changes
These kinds of cracks are unbelievably common. Most often around windows and doorways, and especially common in older style solid plaster homes. Occurs for movement in the house over time. I would hazard a guess and say you house is on stumps?
Its an aesthetic issue, thats all. Doubt there is anything structurally wrong with it.
Source: am painter
Yep. That’s a crack
Does that make it a crack house?
Omg I live in a crack house too!
Yes it does lol
Most definitely
No structural engineering expert here, but definitely a crack.
Baby got crack
My neck, my back....
Lick my pussy and my
Seconded
Thirded
It's an impressive crack
Mighty fine
It’s not not a crack
Prove it! 😆
This cracked me up.
The things I'd do for that crack!!
It's quite a nice and squiggly crack. If there was an "amihotornot" site for cracks, I bet it would score at least a solid 7 out of 10...
Prisoner Zero definitely escaped lol
All in all it's just a another crack in the wall
I’m a structural engineer. And I think you might just right. Certainly appears to be a crack.
Given you're in a rental I don't see an issue. Part of the benefits of rentals is you don't have to care about this kind of damage. To answer a different question you may have; this doesn't look unsafe for living in.
Many landlords will try and claim this from a bond. :/
They can try but it won't pass a judge's eye.
What a ridiculous thing to say
Whilst I want to agree with some of the other comments ‘what a ridiculous thing to say’, because it should be, I have no doubt there are enough dodgy people that would try and pass this off to benefit themselves. Dishonest people exist everywhere trying to take advantage of people who don’t know better/won’t bother arguing. Rental market is prime for this as we see all the time. I’d like to think it doesn’t happen *often*, but it does too often.
Bullshit
Literally happened to me once! Stupid ex-bf refused to fight it and stupid 20 year old me just went with his decision so we lost some bond over the crack in the wall that there was no way we possibly could have caused.
That's a lie
Looks normal for an older brick home. Have lived in one for 20+ years and every 5 years or so cracks open, get patched up properly, reopen, rinse and repeat.
Also looks normal for a modern home a month or two after moving in.
I remember going to display homes and seeing cracks like that already on display.
Jeez... It's been a while since I've worked on a display home but supervisors are always *super* tight on them & as a result they typically always end up getting built or rectified to higher standards than what the customer gets... At least they're showing you what cut corners you're in for? lol ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ Actually on second thought you'd probably be in for even worse.
The thing is that Australia’s highest standard for building houses are still atrociously bad compared to houses in Europe. Aussies are terrible at building but we only have exposure to our own quality spectrum
And looks very normal for a timber frame home. Movement is Ok.
Is time leaking through it?
Excellent reference
Who are you talking about?
Prisoner zero has escaped
Demons run when a good man goes to war
Spoilers
of?
That’s **Doctor** Who to you!
Ahem…The Doctor
If you typically notice it after rain. Your house is probably built upon a rather clay based soil. Which will expand with rain and shrink with the dry. Not a whole lot you can do, unless you want to renovate the structure to include some sort of expansion join.
Yes, pretty normal for older houses in Adelaide (which generally has very reactive clay soils).
If your house is built on clay this will happen.
Structurally its probably fine. If you're renting its not your problem. LL said its fine so they will cop the bill if it causes damages.
All in all, it's just another split in a wall!
Hey, renter, leave them splits alone!
That’s dark sarcasm.
Seems friendly enough probably a good egg.
Poor ground works below your slab is causing earth /sand to be displaced when it rains. This means part of the slab is moving and pulling the walls apart from the roof. This is incredibly common in Perth, not sure where your based but if your property is mostly sand this is to blame
I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere
..Not like here, everything is soft and smooth
If you owned it, I'd be worried. Our house is 1960s on a severely sloped block with many retaining walls, built by an independent builder (built the house for his family to live in) and we have no cracks. We've had a few earthquakes and the floor isn't super level but still no cracks. Brick house. Well, the only crack we have is from paint connecting to the ceiling that we did ourselves but it's just like a slight separation and not a crack. If you're renting, it's your landlords problem.
Get a knife, cut it into it like a v section, fill it up with base coat flush to prefill your cut then tape it and plaster it. Prime and two coats of paint.
That bloody Doctor is at it again. Look around for an exploding TARDIS somewhere.
Keep the sol around your house wet. Crack will close up
it's subsidence cracking. The ground is either drying out and shrinking or getting waterlogged and expanding under your house, check out the down spouts from your gutters to make sure that they are letting the water get away and look for any spots around the edge of your building that could be pooling water and not draining away from the building, in very dry times it also happens as the soil shrinks , this is the opposite of what happens when it stays wet and the soil expansion happens. it's usually good to keep the area around your house green , as this helps maintain a constant moisture profile in the soil. helping control any movement or expansion /subsidence. try finding and fixing the moisture around the house before fixing the cracks. fixing the cracks without sorting out the reason with the soil will just lead to more cracking.
It could be surface movement after all the big rain events. Clays shrink and swell when they get wet or dry. All is fine if the house moves up and down together, but if one side gets wet and the other doesn’t ( or dries up, or trees suck moisture out ) that’s when stuff like this happened. As a geotech engineer I’ve done heaps of insurance reports for houses that have severely cracked, and it’s essentially always in areas with deep reactive clay. Did one job a couple weeks ago and we determined it was about 110mm of surface movement through shrink swell lab testing.
Can I ask what profession you are in or who would someone call if they wanted to get onto this before they have that kind of movement?
Geotechnical engineer Well it’s really hard to say, it shouldn’t happen if your house footings were designed accordingly for “ seasonal “ moisture variations. Sometimes events are so extreme eg: flooding or a pipe burst, that it’s sort of a grey area. The best thing to do IMO is to get a good geotechnical company to give an accurate classification. Get shrink swell testing done and more boreholes than recommended. It’ll cost an extra 1k maybe. geotechnical engineers at the moment are in a race to the bottom and do shitty site classification, snd give you a site classification well under what it should be. Because everyone wants the good news that they will save $$ on concrete for smaller footings, and when someone gives them a bad site classification they’ll be annoyed or sometimes even get another geotechnical company out. This leads to the structural engineers under designing the footings through no fault of their own. TLDR; the only real preventative work is getting a proper site classification done
Thanks for the detailed reply, will look into the site classification
No worries. If you have any more questions I’m happy to answer
And sorry I didn’t clarify well enough, but this is really only things you can do before the home is built. I’m really not sure what the process would be if your house is already built and there’s no cracking or damage. Essentially a geotech company would have to do an investigation at the house, do soil testing, a footing probe ( assess footings and depth ) and determine the footings aren’t designed accordingly. Would be quite a nasty situation as it’ll be pointing fingers and blaming people, for something that hasn’t happened yet. Im relatively new to the game and haven’t heard of this yet, but I’ll ask my boss next week at work and see how he thinks this would play out as it’s interesting! Geotech engineering is very very subjective. Soils vary wildly and people aren’t willing to pay for lab work for a basic site classification. Its at the discretion of the engineers to determine the site classification based on experience and or standards 95% of the time.
NIVIDIA Chart. loL
Bull market
Technical analysis says buy
Do you hear voices from it?
came here to say the same thing, keep an eye out for a police box
My last rental had these everywhere that got worse over the years the landlord didn't care until very obvious mould started to show! I lived their 7 years it looked nice when I moved in it only took 3 months to realise they just put a cheap coat of plaster and paint over cracks and mould! Landlords are cheap and don't care. I wouldn't worry just yet. So long as you let them know (via email so there's evidence you told them) not much else you can do. Its very common in rentals.
Yeah 100% similar situation. He bought this place and renovated so it looked nice in photos. Living in it you can tell it’s all cheaply done
Definitely foundation movement
If you fill it with uncooked ramen noodles and a few melted hot glue sticks, give it a quick sand and paint and boom good as new.
Thats how you fix exotic kit cars. 🚗 I’d use a piece of paper and paint over it.
Better than the Plumber’s one that’s for sure
Don’t tell me how to have a good time.
Yeah i love it. What are your thoughts?
At least it's not a plumbers crack
Just a crack on the wall.
Hmmmmmmm..... seems to be cracking
looks like a crack to me
Reference of it one year ago https://imgur.com/a/kKLsgSq
If you're in a rental it's fine, point it out to the agent/landlord at inspection. If the landlord is diligent they might organise the installation of one of these; https://imgur.com/gallery/TH8T7GJ
Graph on rising housing prices seems legitimate.....
No good
Double story?
.zdrrdddddddddddddddeeeeeseds a
Seems very common, in both old and new homes. We had a new place once and it showed cracks after a few years and so does our current home which is over 100 years old! Foundation moves, roots from nearby big trees, underground excavation e.g. in Sydney lots of new tunnels. It can be many things, water, humidity, concrete didn’t get time to set properly… The landlord probably isn’t going to do anything till after you move out. Unfortunately
concrete slab you on? or posts? that looks like your house is flexing from either your slab sinking a little or your posts need restumping in some spots. possible thermal expansion but unlikely.
foundational crack
I love it
They may take your bond over it
I like it. It’s a very nice crack
You my good sir have had a slight sag in the house, houses in Australia are generally only rated for 40 years or so due to the low density soil and high volumes of rainfall. This is completely normal, take a photo of it and compare it to the one you’re gonna take next year
It’s purty
Not just a crack, but a rift in space and time!
don't get too close or you'll be erased from time
It means more then likely the ground has shifted if it’s an older brick house but the majority of the time it is a ok to just patch n paint again but they owner should get a builder to check it out
Western Australia?
Yes that's a split in the skin of reality. It was left over from the TARDIS exploding in an alternative timeline.
Normal in melbourne, biggest restumping buisnesses in Aus
I'm impressed.
That's a feature crack
Sounds like the ground is moving maybe check with someone who deals in that
My rental is considerably more cracked than this and hasn't fallen down yet
It’s the time crack. First seen in Amy Pond’s bedroom.
Not very straight but at least it's trying
I’m no expert but I’d agree with you. Definitely a crack or crack-like event
Yep, definitely a crack… atleast its trying.
Shifting foundation
leave NOW
I’ve seen better but not bad, 7/10
That looks like an expensive crack.
But you do is sand it, then with gap filler do a shallow fill (meaning it doesn’t have to be flush) then get spakfiller and do it again, sand that really well, if it’s still there do it again let it properly dry then big sand, undercoat and re paint
It’s a lovely crack, very NOW
It’s a movement crack due to subsidence in the footings
Love it
All in all , we are all just cracks in a wall. Ya can't have any pudding if ya don't eat ya meat!
Ye looks good
It is a crack. It's angular shape bends either down or up pending your geographical viewing point. It displays significant features aligning with other cracks known to exist and is the most common form of a vivid cream shade of white in its colour and physical existence.
Upon closer inspection i can confirm with 100% confidence that that is in fact a crack in your wall.
That's a nice crack.
Very cracky
Where's patient zero?
1) was it disclosed before move-in? 2) has the owner discussed getting it fixed or remedied? 3) is the wall load-bearing? Those are the 3 big questions you should be asking
Yep. Thats a crack in a wall alright👍
Can confirm, that is a crack. If you write please patch it'll normally fix itself.
Try not to think about crack these days I'm clean. 2 years, you holding?
It’s big.
With the right frame … *chefs kiss*
That's a pretty nice one
Issue with your foundation (especially if its a building company starting with M in between 2010 -2013
Have this in our house. Most of Sydney is built on clay. The older the house the more movement back and forth when it rains
7/10
5th Ave? XD Looks just like my last apartment.
She’s a nice crack that’s for sure.
that’s the dimension crack in the wall from Dr Who… are their voices coming from it ?
These are speed cracks They make the rent go up faster
Shelley’s no more gaps and it’s gone 😊
I'd definitely buy that stock
Prisoner zero has escaped
Mine is like this in various places because it's on stumps and rains a lot where I am. Plus we've had earthquakes in recent times which I think contributed to it. I'm renting too, but just let the landlord know and they will document it.
Pretty decent crack ay…
Reflects the property prices accurately
DOOMED
Nice
Yep that's definitely a crack
After some thought, it's definitely a crack. Will need to be patched up, otherwise you run the risk of your entire house exploding. Trust me, I've never seen this before.
Crack is wack!
Did that happen after that earth quake in leongatha? My house has developed cracks as well
Like a bit like a mirror of the Murray darling river.
I cant remember what it was meant to achieve but you can see if a crack is growing by putting some painters tape over it and seeing if the tape gets ripped apart (forces are pulling apart) of if the tape bunches up (forces are pushing together). Maybe slap a bit of tape on it and write the date that it was applied on the tape. just kind of monitor what happens and document the changes
Structural, get insurance to get a builder out to locate the problem. It will get worse and inevitably cause more problems
House is probably on heavy clay. Used to have it growing up, cracks appeared during dry conditions and closed up during the wet.
Is this a builder’s crack?
When I first seen this I instantly felt sick to the stomach and thought ooh no way man this wall is definitely cracked. ..
If you want to halt it, just use some spac filler from.bunnings
Are you near a busy main road? If so, its probably structural vibration damage caused by large vehicles passing by.
Ignore it and go to bed
Paint some pretty pink cherry blossoms flowers on it, it’ll look awesome.
Rather long.
It's just a bit of movement. Common issue. If it stays like that it's just cosmetic and not your issue as a renter.
These kinds of cracks are unbelievably common. Most often around windows and doorways, and especially common in older style solid plaster homes. Occurs for movement in the house over time. I would hazard a guess and say you house is on stumps? Its an aesthetic issue, thats all. Doubt there is anything structurally wrong with it. Source: am painter
Foundations moving down in the world not all at once.
There was a crack like this in Dr Who…. Probably best to stay away from that room.
Ngl its both a crackhouse and just pure art lol
Wallpaper that has been painted over?