Front Page Forum: Meaning of the Crack
Within a month or two of moving in to our house, we began noticing cracks in the paint along the molding along the stairs to the top floor. Our contractor at the time said it was no big deal — just a result of the stress of footsteps on the stairs. Although it sounds plausible,…
Within a month or two of moving in to our house, we began noticing cracks in the paint along the molding along the stairs to the top floor. Our contractor at the time said it was no big deal — just a result of the stress of footsteps on the stairs. Although it sounds plausible, we thought we’d see if there was anything less benign that could be at work. Has this happened in your house?
It looks like the contractor used joint compound to fill the void between the sheetrock and the molding.
Joint compound contracts as it cures. Thats why it requires multiple coats with adequate drying time in between.
I had the same problem – you may consider applying a light coat of plaster, sand after, and texture paint to hide any inperfections. Worked well for me.
In our house, this would be a harbinger of doom–perhaps the entire hall stairway preparing to telescope into a yawning pit of dust and splinters, just as guests are arriving. Hope yours is better.
This always happens when you put plaster and paint on the walls and over the seam between the wall and the wood. They each contract at a different rate, plus you have the movement of the stairs, hence the crack. The solution is a nice fresh wall, relatively clean wood, painted separately, with a little indentation between wall and wood. Don’t try to make them one piece. It will not work. It is not a big deal, and the only way to stop it is to clean out all that crappy plaster, caulk and paint and make a fresh connection that doesn’t really try to tie the two elements together.
paintable silicon
put it on with a caulking gun and smooth it with a wet finger
very easy thing to fix. sometimes painters use plaster or compound which can crack. silicon is flexible and won’t crack.
All good comments here regarding temperature, and settlement. From the look of that crack, it’s plaster, and it’s not the first time it’s opened up. It has a bulge just above the joint where the plaster meets the wood molding, which suggests that it has moved before. It has the look of compression, possibly suggesting the party wall slipping slightly while the staircase didn’t. Are there similar signs of movement under the stair? On lower or higher floors?
The bottom line: it isn’t pretty, but neither is it a sign your house is going to fall down. One thing is for sure: it has nothing, and I mean nothing to do with footsteps on the stairs. That’s good for a laugh, but do yourself a favor and don’t hire the source of that opinion.
good luck
thats some thick paint there – probably load-bearing paint by now
You say you just moved in – did either you or the previous owner recently paint that baseboard/wall? Very likely – and also likely that whatever is causing the crack has “been there” for awhile (innocuously or not). All the stress of moving in, going up and down stairs may have just opened it up.
Also, what is the wall? Is it sheetrock over lathe or plaster? If so, that is a “cold joint” – as opposed to the original plaster, which went behind the baseboard – and will be very hard to make “perfect”. As others have noted, seasonal movement, the shiftiness of old houses, etc. could make this an ongoing thing. IF it is sheetrock, a good flexible, paintable caulk may be the best bet for the cosmetic fix.
As for larger concerns, like structure and integrity, you need an engineer or architect to come to your house (before you paint it over!).
Was the stairwell painted shortly before you bought the house? It looks to me as if the seller caulked the joint where the stairs had already settled long ago, and then painted, and the crack you’re seeing is resulting from a too-wide caulk joint. That was badly written, but you get my meaning? Not so much that your stairs just now settled, but that the caulk used to hide that settling is what cracked.