Settling?

[oceanchild]

Our "new" house was built in 1952. We noticed some cracking in the walls before we bought it, and the real estate agent told us it was no big deal. I believe him, but I would like to hide the cracks if possible. They're coming from several of the windows on the back of the house. Like this:





Some of the tile is separating in the bathroom too:


I'm now noticing one that's cracking through a newer coat of paint (done by the people we bought from). So my idea of just painting over them is probably not going to work.

Does anyone know of anything I can do to stop and/or hide the cracks?

Well, just paint wouldn't hide it. You'd need to spackle and sand, then paint.

Did you have a home inspection? Most houses have cracks somewhere -- but yes, you want to cover them as much as possible.

[MrsK]

You can spackle, sand, and paint but in my experience, the cracks still come back. It's probably not settling -- given the age of the house, it should be settled. But it is not unusually to have cracking.

[DCJenn]

what kind of foundation do you have? Changes in the soil around the foundation can cause cracking- it's not so much settling as it is moving.

With the severe drought we've been having patches are appearing all over my house.

Your cracks are pretty think so a fine coat of spackle and some paint should be fine. For larger cracks or for corners you can get this tape that you put down over the crack that makes a support for the spackle.

Jenn

[oceanchild]

Yeah, we had an inspection, but he didn't mention the cracks. So I figured they weren't a real problem, just an aesthetic issue.

It's a concrete foundation. We have a crawl space.

I am paint clueless. Is spackling/sanding a long term fix? Or will I just have to keep doing it?

[alison]

Ditto to what DCJenn says. My parents' home from the early 1900s settled to the point where the toys we had with wheels would roll from one end of the room to the other. They jacked their house up so that it'd be even again. You're not at that stage, of course. My point is, there are a lot worse cases of settling. I think you can get away with spackle and paint right now. They seem to be hairline fractures.

[MarissaNicole]

Thread hijack - this is the lawyer in me talking - and I am sure your cracks are NORMAL settling but for people's future reference there isn't any way for the average person to be able to distinguish the difference between normal settling and ongoing shifting. If you purchase a house with cracks (and particularly on a hill) I would suggest hiring a structural engineer in addition to a traditional builders inspector to inspect your home. Just my two cents....

[GrayMatterWife]

Based SOLELY on the title to this thread, I am SO TEMPTED to post a picture of my DH and ask the exact same question...You girls think I'm settling??

But perhaps I ought not to...

[DCJenn]

Abigail-

you've settled, no point in asking anymore. We've all settled. There's no escape.

anyway,

No, spackling is not a long term fix. The only 'real' long term fix is to remove it and replace the wall. (or in the case of my 1907 walls, take off the plaster and replaster the entire thing- no thanks!)

The next shift or temperature change or whatever the cracks will reappear. I've had repaired cracks last a while though.

Jenn

[oceanchild]

We've all settled. There's no escape.

Here is a picture of my husband sniffing a tree. I think that answers that question.

What about the bathroom tile? Just more grout?

Is he finding out whether the tree is butterscotch or vanilla?

I agree with Jenn re: spackling or doing drywall repair. I think it is normal for grout to do that too, after a while anyway. I'm not sure if you would want to use grout or caulk.

I'll tee up the discussion about cracks needing caulk with a favorite SNL skit: http://bahb.net/videos/snlskitcaulk.wmv

[Deebs]

Houses get cracks. Our home is two years old and has a crack. We've repaired it three times - with fiberglass tape, some special latex spackle that is supposed to last a long time, sanding (first), paint and...it's back. For the tile, you can't just add grout, it'll make the problem worse. You really should remove the affected tiles, remove some of the grout, and re-grout. Isn't owning a home fun?

I showed the tile to DH and he thinks it is normal but that you need to remove those tiles and re-grout like Deebs said. It may look fine underneath but there could be water damage and in that case you would need to do more re-tiling. He said you could also put some caulk in there with but that doesn't really fix it.

[oceanchild]

Thanks. Water damage is what I'm worried about with those tiles, but I bet they're no more than 8 months old (house is a flip), so I hate to think how often we're going to have to re-tile!

[Deebs]

If you're worried about water damage, I'd take off more than just the affected tiles so that you can get a look at what's underneath. In our case, the same thing happened, and it was really just the result of a bad initial grout job. Hopefully it really is nothing.