This is my first post to this forum and I do appreciate all the help in advanced. We are planning on purchasing our first home and we found one we are very interested in except that it has cracks in the exterior brick wall. The house is a 1800 sq ft brick ranch with 3 bed and 2 bath. Their are three vertical cracks on the house. Two in the front on either side of the door that run under a window. The other vertical crack is located on the right side of the house and also runs straight down from the window. All the vertical cracks are not “stairsteps” but instead split the brick all the way down. There is one horizontal crack on the back of the house and is a couple feet across and is near the top of the wall. I will post some pictures in a new post below this post.
*Looks like I can’t do attachments, so hopefully enough info can be gathered written above.
Be certain that whoever “evaluates” the home, evaluates the “cause” not just the “repair”. A repair that doesn’t address the cause if just a ‘band-aid’ and will continue to fail over and over, wasting a ton of $$$ and causing a boatload of aggravation in the process.
sight unseen i’d like to close the psychic hotline
it’s no secret door & window openings are 2 of the weak links in masonry & it no longer surprises me as to how many buyers/owners/inspectors don’t know the difference between a crack and a control/expansion/construction joint
i often see intentional joints unsealed or slathered with all sorts of materials by folks that are ignorant and don’t have a clue what they’re doing…even the masons
hire a competent inspector for all components…they may know enough to properly diagnose while on site and may even defer to a specialist or advise a proper repair themselves if they know the biz well enough…unfortunately many here don’t
Maybe the OP should find a brick and block masrony forum to post pictures? Can’t imagine what answers you were hoping to receive here. Comparing them with the home inspector you hired?
I’m no expert, but the HI is a generalist and if you read the liabilities and pages of disclaimers you should have a laymen’s understanding of what advice they are willing to give a client, even if the HI was a former mason for 40 years.