What is an allowable amount of movement?

In Victoria, Gippsland. Home was built in 2016. No more photos just now but ill try get some this week.

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 Like  ⋅  Add a comment  ⋅  Pin to Ideaboard  ⋅  ShareOK, The orange lines on bricks are where I can see cracking to the motar joints, but further up you can also see cracking through brick work. it takes a lot of stress to crack through rather than around bricks!
Your other question was related to sealing of Abelflex, Yes you need to seal these joints to prevent moisture getting down and ponding next to the footings.

The concrete at the door. See where the concrete butts up against the bricks under the door (on the right side) no dark gap but the orange circle left side, shows a dark gap of about 20mm, that is showing me that part of the path falls to that little garden section near the fence. That is creating a very wet "Abnormal moisture pocket" right next to your footings. Thats a problem!

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In addition to this you have some BIG thirsty trees within a few meters of the dwelling. This would be the reason for a "P" on a soil test. As a plumber (loooooooong time ago) my boss use to say "Look at the width of the tree's canopy, times that width by 3 and thats the extent of its roots". Those roots are up against your home & under your home, and they are taking water out of the ground (more importantly 'out of the clay'). This creates abnormal moisture conditions. Think of the ground around the trunk as a dart board, the tree will take up 90% of the rain hitting the ground within the first 1m ring, 80-90% in the next 1m ring, 65-80% in the next ring etc etc etc. Not exact percentages! but it helps to explain what effect a tree root system has on the clays. The clay is shrinking the most around the tree ring #1, a little bit less in the next ring and so on and so on etc etc. This means on a horizontal plane the clays are shrinking abnormally like a slope toward the tree trunk.

Then you have the path sending water to that garden next to the fence. If you zoom in on the brick sill of the door you can see green mossy darker mortar on the left and lighter cream mortar to the right, this is showing you have more moisture to the left than the right.

The problem you have is the abelflex "no Sealant' = Not ideal. The moisture in the garden = Not ideal, and is adding to the problem. Dig out the section of garden seen in the image and get some bags of concrete mix and concrete it. Fill the Abelflex joints with Sika External grade sealant. Let the concrete cure for about 1x week then get some Bondall pathing clear waterproofing solution and spray all of the slab, you want the treat the slab with a hydrophobic clear treatment. this will move the water out to the edge of the slab and away from the house.

I'm guessing the trees are a park? (council?)
Get an inspector to do a dilapidation report of the side angled external wall. It will cost about $2-3k.
Don't go shopping for a cheap inspector aka a builder/chippy that now looks at houses and charges $600-$800 with photos. They mostly have no idea unless a defect falls on them or they fall over one. (yes my rant)
Keep the report and monitor the side wall for 6 months see if it is getting worse, if you approach the council/owner and ask them how they are going to fix there trees problem.

Around the door, just get some quad or DAR and fix it around the door jambs to make the home weatherproof.

Hope this helps
Craig

How will you determine if tree roots causing problem

Ok be good to see how all goes