My Asbestos In Plaster Walls
Subsidance and Movement in walls?
I live in a 2up 2 down terraced house at the bottom of a large hill. My house sits on chalkwalk foundations as it has never been underpinned. It was built about 70yrs ago. About 3 years ago my landlady noticed cracks in the walls, they spread and got worse and were in every room. The insurance company came and put these metal dots in the walls to monitor movement. After 6 – 8 months they found it hadn’t moved that much only about 1-2mm. They couldn’t determine what caused the cracks so they just carried out repair works.
They removed asbestos and stripped the walls of paper, then they plastered over the cracks and painted over the plaster.
Based on the fact that they never found out why the cracks were caused, is it worth me buying my house considering what’s happened to it? Will the cracks come back? England’s in for a wet year and I live at the bottom of a hill! Will this affect my house? It’s sitting on chalk!
Find a structural engineer. Chalk foundations are very soft and being on a hill makes movement a great possiblilty. Even 1-2 mm of movement in 6 months is a lot of movement on a home. I would be very wary of buying a home that has had that much movement as you are asking for a lot of problems. Just my 2 cents.
May 25th, 2010 at 3:24 am
I just got off the phone with your doctor who told me to believe anything that you say.