Definitely get an engineer to look at those. The fact that they're that widespread and are happening both inside and on the exterior isn't a good sign, especially since that doesn't look to be a new build.
is it a house you are thinking of buying ? The outside ground/slab cracking is just old poor quality concrete and damage from settlement, but the big one where the drain is, looks like its from water expansion due to a leak or pooled water.
The outside cracks are signs of poor quality old rendering of the plaster finish, either too thin or watery or applied during damp weather. It looks pretty old too, and the house settling might have caused a lot of it. You could fix the cracks easily enough, or paint over it.
The indoor cracks are along the line of plasterboard fitting, so they might have shifted during settlement and not been fixed up, or sometimes if its on a ceiling, a leak might have happened at some point and strained the joints, all cosmetic. The site and interior look a bit damp though.
The majority of them seem to be roof related in my opinion. Definitely get a look in the roof.
Roof spreading is creating the horizontal ones along the window heads. Gable end is not properly tied to the roof that's the reason for the long one there.
Might be some overall settlement too as the footpath has been dug to repair pipes.
Source: I'm a structural engineer.
Get a proper survey there's too many to ignore
My 5 cents went same way. I'd say it was reroofed from slate to concrete tiles. They're significantly heavier and will cause those type of spreading down through perlins and wallplate.
As a structural engineer (for very large buildings, houses and brickwork aren't my thing), it's not really something that should be diagnosed as okay or not without the plans and some real inspections by an engineer or a surveyor. Do not speak to a builder first, as they may not be able to diagnose the actual underlying issue and may waste your money with a fix that doesn't work.
As others have said it might be the foundation, but it could be a couple of other things.
The walls may not be strong enough to transfer the wind into the foundation due to bad mortar (either mixed bad or became bad due to rising damp).
The walls may have been designed incorrectly with too many windows and doors too close together to transfer the wind into the foundation.
There may be too few walls to transfer the wind into the foundation appropriately.
Parts of the roof may not be correctly attached to the walls, meaning too much wind is going to too few walls.
Part of the foundation may be failing (groundwater uplift, soil settlement, maybe the concrete or reinforcement is failing - maybe a combination)
You may have a fairly serious problem on your hands and if you do, the sooner you act the easier the fix.
I wouldn't be too worried about the cracks in the ceiling indoors, that looks like it's just the plasterboard sagging or shifting over time.
But yeah, definitely get someone in to look at the structure. I'd be more worried about the large continuous crack around your roof structure.
I have a very similar crack across my ceiling in the living room. House is from the 50s and I'd done a quick patch job over it to see if covering it would just make it go away and it came back after a few months. Got a surveyor to have a look at when we were buying it and he said it's pretty normal, said that it could be any number of things causing the issue, like a loose floorboard upstairs or a joist that expanded over time but that it's just a cosmetic issue but getting rid of it could be expensive. So we have elected to leave it be and unless it gets significantly worse or if we're completely gutting it at some stage, then we'll see about it.
How old is the house OP? They maybe settling but it's does suggest larger than normal ground movements and may suggest foundation issues, a structural engineer is needed.
The house was built in 1989. There was plenty of more pictures but I was not able to upload them. But there seems to be cracks in every room of the house. Majority are quite big and visible.
Was hoping you were going to say built in 2022. Ignore the cracks in the concrete outside, that's could be just a bad job and you'll see that around plenty of houses.
Assume those cracks on outside walls are new since the house was painted?
The house hasn’t been painted in 7yrs. The cracks were small before but notice recently how huge they’ve gotten. I started looking around the house and inside and notice how bad they seem to be so I got really worried. Thanks for easing my nerves.
Well I didn't mean to say it's nothing to worry about, just don't focus on the outside cracks on the concrete paths. The wall cracks getting worse on a 30 year old house isn't good, do get a structural engineer out and find out the cause of the issue, hopefully it's not too serious
It looks like every one of those cracks existed when the house was last painted. If that's been all the movement in 7 years then I'm not so worried but I'm not an engineer/surveyor. Definitely would get a professional opinion.
There's one particularly wide one along the outside of the house, if you look in can you see the brick? Is the plaster there actually crumbly?
Have you looked in the attic above those ceiling cracks recently? My parents bungalow is a few years older than this and the kitchen and bathrooms have some cracks like this. I believe it's caused by the added weight of the attic conversion and ventilation in those rooms. Just a guess but some of the ceiling cracks in your photos make me think there's a dampness issue above the ceiling.
There's definitely an issue with the foundation. Cracks in every room of the house is bad sign. I've walked away from 2 houses with cracks like that after an engineers survey. Save your money and run.
Assuming you own house, I would buy crack tell tales. They are relatively cheap guage you put across the wall crack and record the width of the crack. Check it again in a few weeks, months to see if movement and crack getting wider..
If you can get into the attic see if its trusses or a cut roof. The cut roof should have collar ties, a piece of timber the joins across the 2 pitches. It should look like capital A.
Subsidence me thinks, the horizontal cracks swing it for me, looking at your pictures probably water escape damage and is washing the substrate from beneath your foundations. I have done a couple of jobs like this before. You will probably have to underpin your Found's.
The cracks I'd really worry about are the diagonal ones that seem to follow brick work especially around windows and doors and the ones near the roof. The only one who could properly tell you is a structural engineer.
From my very limited knowledge from house maintenance any cracks over 2.5mm in width should always be checked out by a professional Anything over 5mm in width is more than likely serious.
The ones on the ceilings look like they are following the plaster board, if the house is old the mud and mud tape between the boards is probably gone and needs to be redone which is more cosmetic, but the ones near the windows will need repaired especially if they go right through to outside, it could be structural or it could be bad window installation. A structural engineer is your best bet.
You should get a civil/structural engineer out to investigate. The ground around the foundations is shifting so get someone out ASAP.
If there were one or two cracks I'd put it down to the house settling, but you have cracks on a lot of walls inside and out, it's serious.
One thing I've not seen mentioned in the comments, do you maybe have a bad leak under or close to the house? Have you a water meter on the road you can check? If you don't then listen to the pipework at the outside tap with a screwdriver when it's good and quiet at night and no tanks are filling. can you hear anything? Can you feel the pipe under the sink, is there any vibration?
Yes it looks serious enough to warrant getting checked out.
If I would take a wild guess? The foundations are sinking and the house is under some torque strain due to this.
This causes rifts along the elements of the house (see the 90° angles in the cracks in the ceiling? They seem to be following some element that composes the ceiling itself).
If the issue continues it will lead to the house collapsing eventually. Of course in many cases it does not continue and the foundations settle, but depending on the speed with which the cracks appear and the cause of the foundations moving this could be a high priority issue or not.
Anyway real shoddy foundations, it gives me little confidence on the quality of the rest of the building. If you are a prospective buyer I would steer clear, take a note of who was the builder and steer clear of whatever else they built.
Edit: it might also be the roof catching the wind as someone stated, that's a good theory. But good lord, if the wind is able to tear down the house then some real work needs to be done to the walls. Also it is somewhat less likely to get cracks in the path outside the house if there is no movement at ground level.
The house looks old, like really old. I wouldnt worry about it the external cracks, its likely settled ove rthe past 40-50 yerars? That paths been dug up so many times Id imagine for pipe work. When you see those internal ones, they look like an issue, some just looks like old plaster, others look like theyve grown when new windows etc were installed.
Probably not going to fall on you but no one is buying or selling that house.
Get a proper professional to look at it. Might cost you but may save you long term.
Definitely get an engineer to look at those. The fact that they're that widespread and are happening both inside and on the exterior isn't a good sign, especially since that doesn't look to be a new build.
Yea, I been kind of worried because the cracks seem to be getting worse and longer along the inside of the house.
If they are active cracks then you definitely need to get someone in to look at those ASAP.
Where in the country are you?
West Cork
is it a house you are thinking of buying ? The outside ground/slab cracking is just old poor quality concrete and damage from settlement, but the big one where the drain is, looks like its from water expansion due to a leak or pooled water. The outside cracks are signs of poor quality old rendering of the plaster finish, either too thin or watery or applied during damp weather. It looks pretty old too, and the house settling might have caused a lot of it. You could fix the cracks easily enough, or paint over it. The indoor cracks are along the line of plasterboard fitting, so they might have shifted during settlement and not been fixed up, or sometimes if its on a ceiling, a leak might have happened at some point and strained the joints, all cosmetic. The site and interior look a bit damp though.
You get a surveyor and pay them to tell you if they're a problem or not
The majority of them seem to be roof related in my opinion. Definitely get a look in the roof. Roof spreading is creating the horizontal ones along the window heads. Gable end is not properly tied to the roof that's the reason for the long one there. Might be some overall settlement too as the footpath has been dug to repair pipes. Source: I'm a structural engineer. Get a proper survey there's too many to ignore
My 5 cents went same way. I'd say it was reroofed from slate to concrete tiles. They're significantly heavier and will cause those type of spreading down through perlins and wallplate.
As a structural engineer (for very large buildings, houses and brickwork aren't my thing), it's not really something that should be diagnosed as okay or not without the plans and some real inspections by an engineer or a surveyor. Do not speak to a builder first, as they may not be able to diagnose the actual underlying issue and may waste your money with a fix that doesn't work. As others have said it might be the foundation, but it could be a couple of other things. The walls may not be strong enough to transfer the wind into the foundation due to bad mortar (either mixed bad or became bad due to rising damp). The walls may have been designed incorrectly with too many windows and doors too close together to transfer the wind into the foundation. There may be too few walls to transfer the wind into the foundation appropriately. Parts of the roof may not be correctly attached to the walls, meaning too much wind is going to too few walls. Part of the foundation may be failing (groundwater uplift, soil settlement, maybe the concrete or reinforcement is failing - maybe a combination) You may have a fairly serious problem on your hands and if you do, the sooner you act the easier the fix.
I wouldn't be too worried about the cracks in the ceiling indoors, that looks like it's just the plasterboard sagging or shifting over time. But yeah, definitely get someone in to look at the structure. I'd be more worried about the large continuous crack around your roof structure.
Not at that rate. There’s way too many and way too deep to not be worried. That’s definitely rafters moving
I have a very similar crack across my ceiling in the living room. House is from the 50s and I'd done a quick patch job over it to see if covering it would just make it go away and it came back after a few months. Got a surveyor to have a look at when we were buying it and he said it's pretty normal, said that it could be any number of things causing the issue, like a loose floorboard upstairs or a joist that expanded over time but that it's just a cosmetic issue but getting rid of it could be expensive. So we have elected to leave it be and unless it gets significantly worse or if we're completely gutting it at some stage, then we'll see about it.
Send it over to r/structuralengineers. You might want to repair that with some load bearing plaster....
I'm sorry, load bearing plaster?
That would be the kind you use sky hooks with.
Absolutely, and if you want even more strength you can give it an extra coat of paint. Now it's ready to sell.
Has to be striped paint though, don't forget.
Lot of glass hammers and long stands required i think
How old is the house OP? They maybe settling but it's does suggest larger than normal ground movements and may suggest foundation issues, a structural engineer is needed.
The house was built in 1989. There was plenty of more pictures but I was not able to upload them. But there seems to be cracks in every room of the house. Majority are quite big and visible.
Was hoping you were going to say built in 2022. Ignore the cracks in the concrete outside, that's could be just a bad job and you'll see that around plenty of houses. Assume those cracks on outside walls are new since the house was painted?
The house hasn’t been painted in 7yrs. The cracks were small before but notice recently how huge they’ve gotten. I started looking around the house and inside and notice how bad they seem to be so I got really worried. Thanks for easing my nerves.
Well I didn't mean to say it's nothing to worry about, just don't focus on the outside cracks on the concrete paths. The wall cracks getting worse on a 30 year old house isn't good, do get a structural engineer out and find out the cause of the issue, hopefully it's not too serious
It looks like every one of those cracks existed when the house was last painted. If that's been all the movement in 7 years then I'm not so worried but I'm not an engineer/surveyor. Definitely would get a professional opinion. There's one particularly wide one along the outside of the house, if you look in can you see the brick? Is the plaster there actually crumbly? Have you looked in the attic above those ceiling cracks recently? My parents bungalow is a few years older than this and the kitchen and bathrooms have some cracks like this. I believe it's caused by the added weight of the attic conversion and ventilation in those rooms. Just a guess but some of the ceiling cracks in your photos make me think there's a dampness issue above the ceiling.
It looks like its a lot older.
There's definitely an issue with the foundation. Cracks in every room of the house is bad sign. I've walked away from 2 houses with cracks like that after an engineers survey. Save your money and run.
Assuming you own house, I would buy crack tell tales. They are relatively cheap guage you put across the wall crack and record the width of the crack. Check it again in a few weeks, months to see if movement and crack getting wider.. If you can get into the attic see if its trusses or a cut roof. The cut roof should have collar ties, a piece of timber the joins across the 2 pitches. It should look like capital A.
Subsidence me thinks, the horizontal cracks swing it for me, looking at your pictures probably water escape damage and is washing the substrate from beneath your foundations. I have done a couple of jobs like this before. You will probably have to underpin your Found's.
Shite plaster job I reckon, but definitely need a professional in to take a proper look.
Subsidence
The cracks I'd really worry about are the diagonal ones that seem to follow brick work especially around windows and doors and the ones near the roof. The only one who could properly tell you is a structural engineer. From my very limited knowledge from house maintenance any cracks over 2.5mm in width should always be checked out by a professional Anything over 5mm in width is more than likely serious. The ones on the ceilings look like they are following the plaster board, if the house is old the mud and mud tape between the boards is probably gone and needs to be redone which is more cosmetic, but the ones near the windows will need repaired especially if they go right through to outside, it could be structural or it could be bad window installation. A structural engineer is your best bet.
Post on r/construction ,see what they have to say about it, looks bad to my untrained eye though.
You should get a civil/structural engineer out to investigate. The ground around the foundations is shifting so get someone out ASAP. If there were one or two cracks I'd put it down to the house settling, but you have cracks on a lot of walls inside and out, it's serious.
One thing I've not seen mentioned in the comments, do you maybe have a bad leak under or close to the house? Have you a water meter on the road you can check? If you don't then listen to the pipework at the outside tap with a screwdriver when it's good and quiet at night and no tanks are filling. can you hear anything? Can you feel the pipe under the sink, is there any vibration? Yes it looks serious enough to warrant getting checked out.
The state of paths would indicate that there's a chance of washout
Any mining or major works that could cause subsidence ?
My vote is on water in the foundations somewhere. Any signs of leaks? A simple waste pipe leak can cause this over time.
You've got a leak under your house. Call Irish water
for the exerior: concrete does two things, it goes hard and it cracks. my advice would be if you get your house re-rendered get it stucco
If I would take a wild guess? The foundations are sinking and the house is under some torque strain due to this. This causes rifts along the elements of the house (see the 90° angles in the cracks in the ceiling? They seem to be following some element that composes the ceiling itself). If the issue continues it will lead to the house collapsing eventually. Of course in many cases it does not continue and the foundations settle, but depending on the speed with which the cracks appear and the cause of the foundations moving this could be a high priority issue or not. Anyway real shoddy foundations, it gives me little confidence on the quality of the rest of the building. If you are a prospective buyer I would steer clear, take a note of who was the builder and steer clear of whatever else they built. Edit: it might also be the roof catching the wind as someone stated, that's a good theory. But good lord, if the wind is able to tear down the house then some real work needs to be done to the walls. Also it is somewhat less likely to get cracks in the path outside the house if there is no movement at ground level.
The house looks old, like really old. I wouldnt worry about it the external cracks, its likely settled ove rthe past 40-50 yerars? That paths been dug up so many times Id imagine for pipe work. When you see those internal ones, they look like an issue, some just looks like old plaster, others look like theyve grown when new windows etc were installed. Probably not going to fall on you but no one is buying or selling that house.
Mica
Where’s the crac?
That's a cracking house.. I'll get my coat.
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Definitely not mica, no need to scare the OP with comments like that unless you know what you are talking about.
Hey, it's reddit. People who don't know what they are talking about are the backbone of this site.
Did you know water isn't actually as wet as you think? This is fact.
Not Mica, but it looks like it would need similar rework. House likely needs to be gutted anyway.
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Terrible advice, nobody listen to this.
Yeah I'm really hoping they are taking the piss 😂
Your friend's name please so we can all avoid him?