Repair Is a Craft

A crack in a wall is a symptom, and filling it is not a repair. Any handyman can rake it out, fill it, sand it and paint over it in an afternoon, and for a few months the wall looks new. Then the crack comes back in the same place, a little wider, because whatever opened it the first time is still at work.

The real repair starts underground. On clay soils, foundations move as the ground swells in the wet season and shrinks in the dry, so cracks open and close with the weather. A leaking water pipe under a slab can wash away the support beneath one corner of a house. A large tree planted too close can draw moisture out of the soil around the foundation. Each cause needs a different fix, and an engineer's report is often the cheapest part of getting it right.

That is why repair is harder than new building. On a clean site you follow the drawings. In a repair you read evidence, accept what it says, and resist the cosmetic answer that would please everyone for a season.

It shows up again at sale time. A crack that was investigated, with the engineer's report and the invoice for the foundation work in a file, is a closed question for a buyer. A crack that was only painted over tends to reappear during the buyer's inspection.