Cracks Everywhere – On the House
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Cracks Everywhere

By on March 4, 2014
wall cracks

Question

We live in a third floor (top floor) condo in Tinley Park, Illinois and have some pretty bad cracks in our exterior walls and ceilings throughout the unit. I have fixed these cracks numerous times and they just keep coming back. I saw your article about truss uplift and it sounded like you know your stuff. I don’t want to hire some random team out of the phone book and get burned so I was hoping you could help us out or at least give some direction as to who we should talk to.

Brian

Answer

You came to the right place Brian. It sounds to us like your unit is moving a bit more than it should. You don’t want to make any repairs until you learn the exact cause of the problem. Besides poor construction to begin with, you may be experiencing abnormal ground shift. You may have an undiscovered underground spring. There are reasons too numerous to mention. Your condo association should enlist the services of a geotechnical engineer (soils engineer) and a structural engineer. They can work in concert to answer the Why. Then you can hire a contractor to make the recommended repairs. Keep in mind that this structural issues are an association responsibility. Not yours as an individual owner.

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