Cracks along outdoor door frame

romain1609 · Aug 20, 2024 1:15 pm

Hi there, I am interested in buying a house but I noticed a few cracks on the outdoor walls. The main one is around the outdoor door frame (photos 1 and 2). There's another one around a window (photo 3) and one that runs down a wall (photo 4). Finally, the driveway is also cracked (photo 5).

The building is 12 years old and located near railway tracks (about 30m distance). I wonder if the cracks could be due to train vibrations. Do you think the cracks indicate problems with the house structure/foundations or do you think it's just a minor problem?

Thank you so much for your help!
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Eng. B A · Aug 20, 2024 3:41 pm

Look around the building for non-compliant surface drainage (direction of stormwater toward the building), overflowing roof gutters due to lack of maintenance or inadequate size, inadequate number of downpipes and check if you have a leaking pipe.
You need to fix any compliance issue and wait 6-12 months for soil moisture to stabilise then fix the cracks if you are saying it’s less than 1mm in width.
You need to fix any issues contributing to slab movements first asap to stop cracks getting larger and starting getting more expensive to fix (for example require footings underpinning)
If non of the above seems to cause the issue I would get the structural plans for the slab, soil report and inspection certificates checked by a qualified engineer to confirm adequacy of slab design and construction.

romain1609 · Aug 20, 2024 9:18 pm

Eng. B A

Look around the building for non-compliant surface drainage (direction of stormwater toward the building), overflowing roof gutters due to lack of maintenance or inadequate size, inadequate number of downpipes and check if you have a leaking pipe.
You need to fix any compliance issue and wait 6-12 months for soil moisture to stabilise then fix the cracks if you are saying it’s less than 1mm in width.
You need to fix any issues contributing to slab movements first asap to stop cracks getting larger and starting getting more expensive to fix (for example require footings underpinning)
If non of the above seems to cause the issue I would get the structural plans for the slab, soil report and inspection certificates checked by a qualified engineer to confirm adequacy of slab design and construction.

Thank you, that’s really helpful. It sounds like it could potentially be quite bad, or at least something that may be difficult to diagnose before the sale.