Pressure Is Information

What is a crack above a doorframe actually saying? Usually something specific, because a building under strain tends to show it first at its weakest point.

A diagonal crack running from the corner of a door or window often points to movement in the walls or the foundations below, and a crack that keeps opening after it has been filled tells a different story from one that appeared once and stopped. A damp patch along the bottom of an inside wall may be rising damp, a leaking pipe inside the wall, or soil piled against the outside above the damp course. An earth leakage switch that trips every time it rains is saying that water is reaching somewhere it should not be, close to electricity.

Owners often treat these signs as nuisances to paint over before a sale. But the sign is cheap to read, and the cause is usually cheap to fix while it is small. Paint hides the message without stopping the movement, and a buyer's inspector will often find the crack again under the fresh coat, along with a fair question about why it was covered.