Cracks - Stress or worse?

[cap13]

Hey folks,

We recently purchased a Victorian era terrace house and we are in the process of getting a structural engineer out to review and assess some movement in a Bressumer beam. I've also spotted a crack which we were not originally as concerned about and which had not been flagged in the survey but upon improving the lighting and getting a better view of it - I want the engineer to review as well.

In the interim, I was curious if anyone has seen similar cracks in their properties and the end result. Thanks for your time and any help you can provide.

 

[paulc]

I had a crack in the plaster where it wrapped round the corner of a Bressumer beam over my bay window. The plaster had dropped slightly on one side by 3-4mm. Decided to give it a poke to see if there was any movement.... There was, and I had a four foot length of plaster crashing to the floor. On closer inspection, it would appear that a corner piece had been precast in cement and stuck up with a wing and a prayer from day one and relied on the plaster to hold everything in place.
The old ceiling had a multitude of cracks in other places and had a thick coating of Artex that I wanted rid of. It is now incorporated in to a concrete shed base up the garden, and the cement corner replaced with a plastic corner bead. Putting a new ceiling over the bay gave me opportunity to stuff some insulation in to the pitched roof.

Your cracked plaster in the hallway may just be the plaster detaching itself from the beam. In which case, some screws plus washers may be all that is required to give it some support. But I suspect you'll need to drill a whole or two to insert an endoscope to see what the root cause is. Hopefully, your SR can provide some reassurance that it isn't a sign of catastrophic failure.

 

[Michael55]

I would have been really concerned if the surveyor did not highlight that. Besides smaller cracks in that area, you have another crack on the opposite side as well which also runs down the wall. I'd say the ceiling looks ok though, it doesn't seem to show evidence of major catastrophic cracks - though it's difficult to fully appreciate with the light in the way. Along the bottom seems quite rough compared to the other nearby areas, so I'd be wondering if something has been treated in the medium-recent past.

What about the other side? How does that look?

What is the space/room above it? Anything heavy like a fancy bath?

 

[cap13]

The other side looks ok - nothing too concerning crack wise. There's no obvious examples of bowing and the floors above are about as straight as you could hope for in a property of this age.

In the space above there is some larger wardrobes - perhaps the added weight from moving items into those since we've moved in has resulted in it having added stress on it compared to a few months ago. That's a good item to flag - I naively hadn't thought about directly above the space.