My mother's house needs some sort of repair done to an exterior wall, but I don't know where to begin! Details inside.
My mother's house was built in 1979, so it's just over 40 years old, if that makes a difference. And we're located in Alberta, Canada.
About a year and a half ago, I noticed that there were a few cracks in the stucco on an area of one of the house's siding. I called a local stucco & parging company to get a quote and fix it. However, due to the appearance of the cracks, they recommended having the issue looked at by (I guess) a structural engineer or someone to make sure everything is ok structurally.
I was making plans to do that and then well, a ton of stuff happened and I forgot about the cracks until today! I'm not really sure who I need to contact to find a structural engineer or HOW to find one. They mostly seem to do big projects, I didn't know they'd come out to a residential house.
Here's an explanation of how the cracks look. I don't know any technical terms, so bear with me! Here are the photos of the areas in question: https://imgur.com/a/N6mrLZV
Only *one* exterior wall seems to have cracks. Just one. There is NOTHING on any of the other exterior walls. The wall that has a crack on it is directly to the right of the front door to the house. The wall only exists on the outside of the house (not sure how to describe it), it's like a privacy wall by the front door, maybe? Anyway, it makes more sense in the photos. The concrete steps have seemed to have separated from the exterior wall (as you might be able to see in the photos) by about an inch and there is a huge crack there. On the OPPOSITE side of that wall, there is very large rectangular crack along the bottom of that same wall. I'm not sure if it's very clear from the photos (the shrubs block the view, a bit). There IS a cedar shrub there AND a "little" invasive Maple that likely need to be removed, could they be contributing to this?
Now, I'm not sure if I am describing this properly, but what I noticed (and so did the stucco repair contractors) was that the crack ENDS exactly where the *actual* house begins. It appears as though the exterior privacy wall to the right of the front door is somehow... shifting? What is going on!?
From what I can tell, inside the house there are ZERO cracks in her basement. There haven't been any leaks, either. So I'm not sure... could it be the foundation? And, again, there are also ZERO cracks anywhere else on the exterior of her house. Just that weird privacy wall! There's nothing on any other wall outside!
Another issue I've noticed is that there seems to be a gap underneath the concrete steps to her house and the bricks on the pathway leading to the house that are closest to the front steps are starting to sink and are falling into that gap! It looks worse now than it did in those photos. I'm thinking that just for safety purposes that entire pathway needs to be re-done soon, anyway. (Pretty sure my dad built the brick pathway himself, naturally).I feel a bit bad as I've probably let the problem get worse over the last two years. I'm not sure if the two are connected, but I figure they might be.
What do you all recommend? Is a structural engineer the best place to start? Where do you find them? Are there any other tradespeople I should be investigating? Any advice would be greatly appreciated! |
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