Uneven deformations of foundation soils, frost heaving
Deviation of walls from vertical
Uneven deformations of base soils.
Violation of the anchorage of the slabs.
Broken connections with cross walls
Bulging walls
Irregular deformations of horizontal mortar joints of differently loaded longitudinal and transverse walls (especially for buildings erected in winter)
Vertical cracks in the outer walls
Overloading of walls and lintels.
Reduced strength of concrete
Vertical and oblique cracks in interior walls
Deformations of thickened or low strength mortar, horizontal mortar joints.
Overload, increase in eccentricity of load application
Vertical cracks at the junction of longitudinal and transverse walls
Displacement due to the different loading of the longitudinal and transverse walls.
Temperature and humidity deformations of the walls
Extruding outer panels
Mechanical damage.
Excessive internal pressure (gas explosion)
Short cracks under the support of the slabs
Local crushing of concrete due to overloads, low bearing of floor slabs.
Reducing the strength of the concrete of the transverse load-bearing walls
Layering of sandwich exterior wall panels
Loss of bonds between layers of panels as a result of corrosion or failure of anchoring
Bulging of individual sections of the outer walls
Overloading of panels, temperature and humidity deformations of concrete.
Neoplasm pressure (salt, ice)
Shrinkage cracks
Shrinkage deformations of concrete
Temperature cracks
Temperature and humidity deformations
Crushing concrete wall panels at platform joints
Overload, decrease in concrete strength of wall panels, decrease in mortar strength of horizontal joints, thickening of horizontal mortar joints
Chipped concrete corners and edges of panels, sinks
Manufacturing and transportation defects.
Increased deformability of horizontal mortar joints of internal load-bearing walls
Horizontal cracks
Panel transportation defects.
Increase in eccentricities of load application.
Stratification of concrete.
Shearing concrete shear
What to do if a crack is found in the wall of your apartment or house? The first advice is to observe, but not to procrastinate.
Drawing: Polina Vasilieva
New building
It happens like this: I waited for the delivery of the house, received the keys to a brand new apartment, made repairs. In less than a year, the expensive, lovingly chosen wallpaper "led": an ugly fold formed on the canvas, the drawing shifted. You decided to re-glue the ill-fated piece and found several cracks in the plaster under the wallpaper. Our advice is - don't worry in advance.
The most common reason for such cracks in a new building is natural soil shrinkage which can last up to five years. If you remove the finishing layers, then, most likely, you will see that these are the joints between the plates, which is especially typical for panel houses, the walls of which, according to experts, have been shaking all their lives. Therefore, it is recommended not to make major repairs immediately after check-in. A fine mesh of cracks on the walls and ceiling can be remove with putty... To do this, it is necessary to clear the problem area to the plate, wipe and dry the surface well, then apply a primer, and fill the gaps between the joints of the plates, then attach a reinforcing mesh (it will give strength and prevent the walls and ceiling from deforming in the future), and then plaster with using a plaster mix.
And what to do if it was found under the wallpaper serious crack? Then you first need to check if it diverges. For this, a plaster composition with a palm width is applied across the crack. If nothing happens to the mark within a month, then the crack is stable, it can be repaired in the way described above, having previously expanded and cleaned from construction debris and dust. But if the mark is torn, then the crack is enlarging. In this situation, it is better not to wait, but to contact the management company for obtaining professional help... However, even in this case, you should not panic, because if the house is put into operation, the likelihood of really serious violations of construction technologies is extremely small. In any case, a special commission will inspect the object and develop recommendations for the developer to eliminate the shortcomings.
So, experts recommend to the lucky owners of apartments in new buildings to reinforce the walls, floor screed, and also provide for expansion joints. Ceiling in new apartment make a tension, paste over the walls and, most importantly, do not get carried away with expensive finishing materials, because the costs may not be justified.
old house
Even in a reliable brick building with walls a meter thick, cracks sometimes form. The reasons can be very diverse: a change in the composition of the soil and its deformation, and as a result - a change in the load on the foundation, an increase in the level of groundwater, temperature drops, vibrations, excavation work and the construction of new houses in the neighborhood, improper operation of engineering systems and, in after all, wear and tear. In the latter case, it is necessary to achieve.
Even if the commission does not recognize the house as such, it is obliged to give permission for a complete technical survey of the house to find out the reasons for what is happening. If the situation is not so serious, small cracks in the inner walls of the premises, provided that they do not diverge, can be repaired quite easily: the damaged area must be cleaned, abundantly moistened with water and cement mortar.
However, we emphasize that deep cracks in the walls of a brick house - this is pretty serious, because most often the reason for such destruction lies in the unsatisfactory condition of the foundation, which for years was soaked by groundwater, suffered from breakthroughs of pipes and water in the basement. In this case, the house will have to go through a number of serious and expensive measures, including waterproofing the foundation and basements, installation of a drainage system, repair of pipelines, strengthening of the foundation and elimination of the causes of soil subsidence. Naturally, one cannot do without the help of specialists.
V panel houses cracks appear at the joints of the panels, therefore the seams between the panels should be well sealed... Previously, they were filled with rubber in the old fashioned way and cemented. Now there are more modern materials: polyurethane seals, polyurethane foam, various mastics. However, it is worth remembering that each such material has its own recommendations and application technology. And therefore, we strongly recommend not to do the repair yourself, but to entrust the work to the shoulders of professional craftsmen.
Alisa Orlova
Very often, homeowners encounter cracks on the walls, some creep like cobwebs on the putty, but there are also cracks tearing the building apart. Knowing true reasons their appearance, you can stop their growth, and then proceed with the repair and decoration of the house.
Construction errors leading to cracks in the house
The old private houses were built by the owners, who used the help of family and friends. Sometimes they did not even have a specific plan, so the houses were erected without calculations and were ill-considered upset by the addition of separate rooms. There was also a lack of information on how to properly make a foundation or reinforce concrete.
Often, some believed that the more iron in the foundation, the better. Such a base was reinforced with anything, up to pieces of tin and any scrap metal. The second common option for building a foundation that leads to the appearance of cracks is the complete absence of reinforcement. The base of the house was laid out of brick or wild stone, without taking into account the peculiarities of the soil on which it was built.
All this led to the fact that many houses began to sink over time, the foundations cracked, and the extensions moved away from each other, forming rather large and dangerous cracks. Some of them appear, but over time they stop growing and do not require strengthening the foundation. To determine the method of correcting the defect, you must first find out whether the crack threatens to collapse the wall or not, and then establish the cause of the crack.
How to determine the type of crack
Cracks are superficial, in which only the plaster layer cracks, and through, passing through the entire thickness of the wall. To find out the type of damage, it is necessary to establish whether the crack continues to grow or whether it is already established and does not change in size.
This is determined using glass beacons. A narrow long strip is cut out of thin glass, which is fixed at its ends with gypsum on both sides of the crack. The center should remain clean and over the crack. It is better to knead the gypsum thicker to make it easier to glue the glass. Its walls are so smooth that the ends of the glass beacon are constantly slipping, so you need to hold it with your hands for a few seconds until the plaster is completely solidified.
Signs for determining the depth of cracks:
- superficial (retractable cosmetic repairs) - after a month the glass remains intact. Such a crack has already stopped and is not enlarging;
- destroying the house (requiring major repairs) - the glass burst within a month. The discrepancy continues and it is necessary to look for the reasons for this process and urgently eliminate them.
Most common reason the appearance of such cracks is a violation of the integrity of the foundation and soil subsidence. Destruction occurs with loose soil or a small area of the foundation that is not designed for the weight of the walls. Sometimes the base is washed away by groundwater. If the strength and integrity of the foundation is not restored and its further subsidence is not excluded, it will be impossible to repair the cracked wall. No matter how many times it is plastered and no matter how it is strengthened, the crack will appear again.
We remove cracks in the house that can destroy it
You can strengthen the foundation different ways, but the most reliable is to make it solid again with the help of correct reinforcement and an increase in the area of support on the ground. To achieve this, you need to dig a trench about one and a half meters long and 40-50 cm wide close to the foundation. The depth should be about 40 cm below the foundation, but not less than to the freezing point.
Then we remove the soil from under the foundation, to the level of the bottom of the trench. This will enable the concrete to spill under the old base and increase its area almost twice, while reducing the load on the ground by the same amount.
We reinforce this space with reinforcement rods with a thickness of at least 14 mm, laying them horizontally along the foundation and sticking the ends in both sides of the trench by at least 20 cm. There should be six or more such rods. Two rods at the very bottom, two in the middle and two on top. Such an arrangement of the reinforcement in the foundation makes it work not for bending, but for breaking, which is ten times more effective.
We drill holes in the foundation in order to drive pieces of reinforcement into them and weld them with the rods laid earlier. Then we fill this trench with concrete, making sure that the solution fills well the void under the foundation. Ideally, it is recommended to use a vibrator for this, but if this is not possible, the concrete should be well vibrated by hand using a long rod.
Several such trenches must be made under the wall, the number is determined by the distance. The gap between the trenches should be about two meters. After the concrete has set (usually two weeks are enough for this), you can start digging the same trenches between the resulting new foundation blocks.
By digging out the next trenches, you will free the ends of the reinforcement rods (which were previously driven into the ground by 20 cm) and you can connect separate blocks of the new foundation into a single-piece reinforcing belt using welding and two-meter pieces of rods.
After filling all the trenches with concrete, you will get a strong new foundation with an increased area of support on the ground and tightly connected to the old foundation. Now you can safely start repairing the crack itself, since the new reinforced foundation will no longer allow the wall to disperse.
To repair a crack, first of all, you need to clean its edges from such parts of the wall and plaster that can hardly stick. Then it must be filled with some kind of solution, the choice of which depends on the width of the crack and the building material from which the wall is made.
If the crack size is small, the most in a simple way will fill it polyurethane foam followed by plaster and putty. When the crack is large, the hole is filled with the material from which the damaged wall is made, with further finishing.
The most difficult repair is a crack on the wall, which is lined with finishing bricks. Before laying, broken bricks are knocked out, and new ones are put in their place, adjusting the masonry according to the pattern.
Redecorating cracked walls
If the glass beacon showed that the crack was no longer parting, there was no need for such complex repairs. Just make a cosmetic one.
To do this, the crack must be processed, removing all the pieces that do not hold well, and filling it, as described above. When the hole is closed, the surface is plastered and putty. In this case, it is recommended to use a construction mesh for plastering.
The mesh must be glued to the crack so that its edges go over the sides of the crack by ten centimeters and only then plaster this place. The mesh will create additional reinforcement and prevent the appearance of new microcracks from shrinkage of the material.
Also, when renovating a house, one sometimes has to deal with microcracks that appear on normal and well-reinforced walls due to thermal expansion. This is usually due to the fact that no reinforcing mesh was used when they were putty. It is best to completely re-putty such walls, reinforcing them with a mesh. This will guarantee that microcracks will not appear in the future. But if this is not possible at the moment, you can use elastic putty mixtures to repair such defects.
Do not try to fill large cracks with polyurethane foam or other materials, as this will accelerate its expansion. Through cracks are the most dangerous and their strong divergence leads to the collapse of the floor slabs. This method can only be used temporarily to survive the cold season, during which overhaul hard to do.
Crack in the wall of the apartment Is a rather serious signal. This is an indicator that the room is becoming unusable: the strength of the building, its thermal insulation properties decrease, and there is a possibility of moisture penetration into the apartment. At the initial stage, cracks can be eliminated.
Crack in the wall of the apartment: on the plaster
The emergence cracks in the wall of the apartment in cement-sand plaster - not at all uncommon. Most often, such cracks are no more than a hair thick. They become more visible after applying a layer of primer or putty.
The most optimal option for sealing such cracks is fiberglass. It is glued to a dry and primed wall with a special glue for glass wallpaper. Next, a layer of finishing putty is applied to the fiberglass.
Crack in the wall of the apartment: on drywall
There are several reasons for the appearance of cracks in the drywall wall:
- violation of installation technology;
- improper application of putty;
- sharp temperature drop;
- dampness;
- flood, etc.
Close up such cracks in the wall of the apartment can be done in several ways. If the frame does not wobble, you can use a drywall putty or fiberglass to fix them.
If the frame is loose, first of all, it must be strengthened. For this, an already existing crack is deepened with a sharp construction knife by about 2-3 mm. Then it is cut in width at an angle of 45 degrees. It turns out a cut of about 5 mm.
Dust and pieces of gypsum are removed from the gap formed with a dry brush. Further, the surface is primed. After the soil has completely dried, the gap is sealed with putty or sealant. The place where the crack is filled is sanded, primed and painted.