House Settling Cracks

How do you fix a house with settling cracks?

After months or years of living in your home, you'll find that you will start seeing settling cracks in your drywall. This is due to the movement and weight on top of your home.

In Tucson, the cracks are prevalent due to how much our homes settle.  Some people think that these settling drywall cracks are caused by poor drywall installation or inferior materials but this is not always true. Your home will start experiencing cracking as it settles and moves over time. These small movements lead to stress on your walls and ceilings which can causes these minor breaks, especially since drywall is fragile .

In some cases, where the cracks are repaired but keep persisting, we can also remove the old panels and replace them for a new installation.  This is great when your home has already settled enough but the crack keeps coming back.

Drywall Cracks From Foundation Movements

This is the most common cause of drywall cracks in a home, and these are caused by movement from your foundation.  Your whole house will move with every change in weather condition which can lead to stress on your walls and ceilings. There might not always be visible signs that this has happened at first but over time you'll start seeing small breaks where there wasn't one before. Patching them yourself might seem like an easy fix at first glance but don't fool yourself - if there's one thing you should know about repairing drywall, it's that doing so incorrectly could just be waiting time and material, when you could just have a professional perform the drywall repair.

Hairline Cracks

Hairline cracks are tiny cracks along your wall or ceiling that may not be to visible but starts getting larger over time. This is due to how brittle and fragile drywall can be, so small movements in your home or living space will lead to these hairline breaks.

This could also come from non-uniform spacing between panels which would result in a weak area that eventually starts cracking with time. These tiny fissures happen when there's an impact (like a door slamming)  or when water or humidity gets into the drywall.

There are different kinds of cracks, some are just small fissures in your wall that don't stand out, while another one is a sharp break with jagged lines on the surface which can be found any where in your house, sometimes along studs that sometimes aren't installed correctly and the joint puts pressure on the sheetrock.

You should try going around your home inspecting for these tiny breaks before they start getting worse and cost you more money down the road!

Fixing Hairline Cracks Yourself

If there's only a few minor hairline cracks then it might not hurt to fix them yourself . Here are some things you'll need to do:

-V the along the crack with a drywall blade or utility knife and then screw the drywall in to make sure its secured before applying joint compound to fix your hairline crack.

-Prefill the crack and tape it, you we recommend using mesh tape to secure it.

-Float the area out to even the joint compound along your wall or ceiling

-Give it one more skim and finally texture your sheetrock, of course matching the existing drywall texture.

If you simply don't want to repair the drywall damage give Drywall Repair Tucson a call at (520)447-2912 and we'll go out to provide you with a free estimate.