Crack over front porch

[minniemoo]

We live in a 1930's style house which is pebble dashed on the outside which we bought in March this year. The valuation report we had done said that there is evidence of subsidence but nothing to suggest this is ongoing and I think this is standard with a vast majority of properties. We have an arched porch which, again, is pebble-dashed and a step-in to the front door. We have noticed that there is a crack starting at the centre of the arch going up at an angle towards one of the front bedroom windows. A friend has told us that this means the front of our house is sinking which is a bit dramatic to us and someone who came out last week (to do a job unrelated to this) had a quick look and said that this type of arch does not have a lintel (it's the bricks shaped into an arch that act like a lintel) and it could be that these have cracked. He said that looking down at the front of the house there has been no movement so my friend's conclusion was wrong.

Does anyone have any ideas of what this might be? If not, do you know what type of builder/surveyor etc we should call out.

We are getting a bit worried that the porch might one day soon fall down and we don't think the postman would be too happy if it happened when he was on the doorstep !!!!

Cheers guys.

[Al_Ucard]

I think the friend is wrong. If the front of the house was sinking wouldn't the corners crack? The second opinion seems more likely therefore the arch is where the problem lies. I would get a well recommended local builder to take a look.

[muchlovex]

Hi, my partner is a Valuation Surveryor and they said that it would be a Building Surveryors job to inspect your property.

I bet you pay quite a bit of Home Insurance if your house is got substinance?

[minniemoo]

Thanks guys.

'MuchLove' we haven't actually got subsidence (thank God), I was mistaken, our report said that there was previous movement.

Thanks again.

[caron musson]

Our house is the same as yours not that we have got an arch though but it is pabbledashed we had cracking but it has since been repaired ( before we moved here )
but I can tell you that on out survey that they said it was due to a willow tree being outside the property ( and has since been removed, as it wasn't just our house but my next door neighbours who would have been further away from the tree , but was much worse than ours ) so if you have a tree outside I would suggest looking at that also

[minniemoo]

Thanks Caron, as a matter of fact we have a very big eucaplyptus tree in our front garden which is a couple of feet away from our front door. Someone has mentioned that we need to have a look at the tree so we are obviously going to have to sort that out pretty soon.