THE TOOL GUY

Q: We own an older home (1907-ish) on Spokane’s North Side. About five years ago we enlarged an existing room on the backside to create a “family” room with a 10-foot peaked ceiling. It was built on a new concrete foundation.

With normal settling and the small earthquakes several years ago, both peaked walls in the family room have cracks. Some of that is probably normal, but we wonder if there is something else we can do besides putty up the cracks and paint over them. They’ll continue to enlarge, won’t they?

Scott and Dora-Faye H., Spokane

A: Thank you for allowing me access to your home to view the situation. It appears that the addition has experienced some settling, or heaving, of the exterior walls with only minimal damage; the up-to-3/16-inch wide cracks are not excessive. Frost heave should be anticipated, which is why the building code requires a minimum 24-inch deep footing with a 6-inch foundation wall extending a minimum 6 inches above grade.

During my exterior inspection I saw the shed roof design and was curious as to how you achieved an A-design vaulted ceiling on the home’s interior. It wasn’t until I looked into an inspection hole that I could see what was going on. It was clear, then, that the shed roof design did not contain engineered trusses. The span is on 2-foot centers for 2-by-6s, a design I would not have recommended for the length of the 2-by-6s used. The other leg of the A design that connects to the 2-by-6s to create the inside peak doesn’t appear to have any real lateral support.

It might be a good idea to add blocking in between the rafters to the intersections to help tie the lower part of the roof design into a complete system. The cracks that appear in the peak, a foot in from the interior and exterior walls, may have been caused by some settling or heaving, but I believe most of the fault lies in the roof design.

Additionally, the cracks creeping down the walls from the peak indicate that this is where the new addition was tied back into the existing home. Here I saw that the exterior wall was framed in 2-by-4s, also on 2-foot centers. With an addition this small, a few extra studs placed 16 inches on center wouldn’t have added much to the overall cost. Professionally speaking, I believe the overall framing should have been done differently to comply with the building and energy codes; however, at this point you still have a couple of options to help the situation.

You could add blocking to shore up the roof and ceiling within the attic space. To fix the vertical cracks, you could remove the wallboard in the areas and check to see that the new addition was correctly tied into the existing building, and that the rafters and ceiling joists have been properly fastened together. Look for double studs in these two areas and if they were fastened together. Perhaps there’s nothing in this area, in which case framing members can be added.

Since the settling is minimal, the four visible cracks are at a normal size (under ¼-inch), and because both the ceiling and walls have a hand texture, I would try repairing the cracks. If you are going to repair, scrape the texture back about 7 inches away from both sides of the crack (14 inches total width). Clean the cracks of loose material and fill with a water-base white adhesive caulk. Then tape these areas following normal taping procedures: apply taping compound, followed by tape, followed by topping coats, followed by sanding, followed by texture, followed by painting.

If the cracks reappear after this, then I recommend that you correct the framing areas as discussed earlier.