wall ties?

[liz richards]

hi does anyone know if when wall ties go you can get horizontal cracking on the inside and not on the outside wall as one would expect or is this something entirely different and likely to be expensive tia

Liz

[Andrew Gabriel]

Wall ties fail through rusting. When steel rusts, the rust is larger than the original steel from which it is formed, which is why it flakes off. Inside a wall, the swelling due to rust is sometimes claimed to cause walls to crack and given as the excuse for all the old wall ties having to be removed. However, I have no personal experience of this. You could use a metal/ pipe detector to see if there's any metal aligned with the crack. I would think this more likely in the outer skin though.

The other possibility is that the wall is bowing due to failed wall ties. Look along the wall for a bulge across the crack. However, again I would think this more likely in the outer skin.

What size cracks are we talking of here?

[liz richards]

thanks Adam the crack is on gable end of a semi.on that side of the house is the small bedroom bathroom then the stairwell in the sm bedroom the crack runs from the left to right the crack is only about 2 -5 mm cannot see if it continues in the bathroom its been tiled but no cracking of grout or tiles...in the stairwell the crack continues at the same height as bedroom crack is over 10 mm in places it has been repaired at some point and filled. I have noticed that there is hairline cracking starting again ..could this be due to work being carried out on that wall ie:banging and drilling. the wall itself above the crack is tilting backwards slightly there is appro

3 courses above it to the ceiling. i was under the impression that the wall ties had been replaced although now I am not so sure.but as u said the cracking is generally on the outside of the house I have never seen it on the inside..any ideas as to what it may be tia liz

[Hugo Nebula]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2007 10:22:08 +0100, a particular chimpanzee, "liz richards" randomly hit the keyboard and produced:

I would have thought a single crack wouldn't be indicative of wall tie failure; with the bowing, it sounds more like a lack of lateral restraint. A gable wall with a stair against it traditionally has a poor level of restraint unless it's tied in at ceiling height.

Is your roof hipped or does the gable continue upwards? If the former, you may want to also consider some form of roof spread.

[liz richards]

what do u mean by hipped..the roof if u look at it from the that side is triangle leaning back to go to the top of the roof.the crack follows the upper lintel line which is not visible from the outside as it under the roof line liz