Hi all,
A first time post, so please be nice (& forgive me if I have posted in the wrong spot or have broken the rules!).
My wife and I built a house 15 years ago, via a typical building company in Adelaide (lets just leave it at that for now....no need to name and shame, yet). The house is a brick veneer. If it helps, the soil is clay and there was a cut and fill to level for the house.
The build was reasonably straight forward from memory. After hand over there were a few issues that were fixed under the statutory warranty.
A few months ago, I noticed a vertical gap appearing at a right angled corner on the external plasterwork (rendered front of the house). I also noticed similar gaps appearing around the window frames in the same vicinity. The gap tends to be wider at the top and tapers down to a non existent gap at the end of the line it appears on. At its widest, the gap is around 6mm. To say I am concerned is an understatement.
I contacted the builder, who offered a standard 25 year structural warranty and sent them emails with pictures of the gaps. They have reviewed the emails and have said that they 'can' come and have a look, but have suggested that it appears to be just normal movement.
At this stage, I am thinking that it might be best to have an inspection done by an independent inspector.
What I am trying to get a feel for is whether others who are involved with building and renovating would expect that this kind of gap in anyway would be from acceptable movement.
Thoughts?
Cheers
(PS - I can post a few pictures once I upload them online)