Damage to upsatirs plaster from building work

We’ve had a supporting wall removed and replaced by a girder, all done to Structural engineers recommendations, building control involved etc.

In the bedroom above lots of cracks have appeared in the plaster, which was only skimmed 2 years ago. The builder has talked about what we want to do to remedy this.

The affected wall originally had an brickwork arch where a bay window was, which was removed about 30 years ago and replaced by a wooden beam, I guess some settlement occured then. Then when our builder did his work it settled yet again and the brickwork is a bit of a christmas cake.

He’s suggeated that if we take the plaster off it may reveal big cracks and that the wall may need some re-building / blockwork.

That is what I’d like them to do, however is it reasonable to expect them to meet all the costs of this reparatory work as they aren’t workig with goodd brickwork in the first place?

No.

No

No

He clearly didn’t jack and pack the steel up well enough to stop further cracking. However you can’t really tap him up for the work as it sounds like there was previous settlement.

What they said.

Thanks, that’s what I expected.

No +1

Unless they’ve done something wrong to cause it to crack more than could be expected.

Our downstairs is now riddled with cracks after having some work done upstairs this month so I feel your pain.

How much is more than can be expected? Someone said as long as its no bigger than your finger its ok, which it all is, however unless you’ve got the plaster off you’ll never know what’s what, and I guess you’ll struggle to work out what’s new and legacy?

Would just putting pasterboard on the brick be ok to stop cracks in future, or is shoring up the underlying brickwork the only way to guaranatee that?

When I removed a supporting wall between kitchen/dining room we got some cracks in the plaster in the wall above. However these are only hairline cracks which can be filled in quite easily and they haven’t got any bigger in the last 6 months. You have to expect some settlement in the wall above, no matter how well it is supported before the beam goes in their will be some movement, even if its small.

If the wall above is a bit sketchy anyway those issues are going to be magnified somewhat which is where you are now.

In my opinion, if you are getting work done at the moment and you’re planning to stay in the house for a while get it done correctly now, as you’ll probably going to have to sort it out at some point anyway. Patching up and making do is never the best solution.

How much is more than can be expected?

I meant in terms of how they worked, if they knocked the wall down in a hurry then realised the rest was falling down and put acro props in (i.e. being incompetent) then I’d expect them to fix it, but if it’s just the result of normal work and an already loose wall you can’t really expect them to fix problems that aren’t their fault?

Bricks and mortar have effectively zero tensile strength, which is why the crack so easily, if it’s just hairline cracks it means the bricks/blocks have moved slightly, they’re still resting on each other so it’s probably lost very little strength.

Given the quality of the brickwork in the rest of the house, I expect the damage was inevitable.

You need to decide whether the cracks are cosmetic or potentially affect structural stability. What does the wall with the cracks support? Water tank in the loft? Roof purlin (I don’t know how old the house is)? What thickness is it? If in doubt, get back to the Structural Engineer who did the beam design, as they should have taken all that into account so will know.