Small signs you could have big problems around your home

17 August 2023 By: Vanessa Pogorelic

No matter what the age of your home, defects are a fact of life as a homeowner. Good maintenance can help mitigate some of the risks. Knowing the early warning signs of what could turn into a bigger problem over time, could also save you from some very costly and inconvenient repairs.

Here are just some of the signs that something more complicated may be going on behind the scenes in your home.

RELATED: Why you can't afford to skip a pre-purchase building inspection »

Doors and windows that don’t open properly

Having difficulty opening and shutting doors and windows around your home can simply be due to the age of the materials. This is especially true with timber frames, which can bow and twist as they age. But it could also be a sign of far more significant defects.

One possibility is that there is a downward force above the window or door frame that is overloading that area. In the case of a home with two or more floors, it may be related to the suspended slab above the window, or in a single storey home, it could be from the weight distribution directly above that window.

Russell McCarthy, Lead Building and Pest Inspector from WA Building Inspections Perth says this can happen particularly with wider span areas, such as doorways or larger windows.

“It can crack a window and even break the glass. Not only will it deflect to a point where the window jams up, it can essentially cause issues with the function of the window or a sliding door entirely.”

Doors and windows that stick could also indicate that the steel lintel above is failing due to rust. During a home build, the parts of the lintel that are exposed should be painted to protect it.

If that is not done or if the paint degrades over time, then the lintel is exposed to moisture which can cause the exposed steel to rust.

“The problem with lintels is, if they begin to expand, it's not as simple as just grinding off the rust and repainting it” McCarthy says.

“Sometimes it's too far gone, and you need to remove the brickwork, prop everything up and do a full renovation to replace the lintel. So, it can be quite an invasive and expensive repair.

“If the rust is only minor then grind it off, treat and paint it, and keep an eye on it.”

Water finding its way into a wall cavity can also be the cause of windows and doors that are becoming hard to open.

Assuming a double brick construction style, if the roof is not discharging water properly, it can run back into the eaves and then gain access to the wall cavity. Where that water is not able to be discharged through weep holes in the wall, it can sit on top of the frame, or in the case of a sliding window, it can pond in the tracks and corrode the window’s components.

Many buildings don't have up-to-date building standards in place to discharge water away from the window frame through weep holes.

In this case, it may be necessary to replace timber-framed windows with a more modern window system. In the process, while the cavity is exposed, you also have the opportunity to retrofit flashings to further deal with any future water issues.

An even better solution, of course, is to make sure that water can’t get into the wall cavity in the first place by ensuring your roof can adequately discharge water when it rains.

External wall cracks

You’d be hard-pressed to find a home that hasn’t at some point in time developed wall or ceiling cracks. Settlement cracks can occur throughout the life of a home and are, for the most part, no cause for concern.

But there are some forms of wall and ceiling cracks that could be warning signs of a bigger structural issue.

Starting with external wall cracks, subsidence or movement of a home’s foundations is by far the most common cause of cracks on exterior walls. In double-brick homes, the external walls are more susceptible to foundation erosion.

Russell McCarthy says most cracks occur when the foundation (footings) detaches from the property slab.

“All of the load from internal walls generally sits on the internal slab, while your external brickwork sits on a separate strip footing located at a lower height to the internal slab.

“So if you've got contoured land and you have subsidence, it's going to target your external brickwork first as your strip footing becomes undermined. So if you see cracking on the outside but not on the internal wall, it’s almost always going to be pointing to foundation movement in the strip footing.”

McCarthy says minor settlement cracks are nothing to be alarmed by, but the width and contours of a crack are what to watch out for.

“If the crack follows your mortar joints on one wall, and then continues around the corner of the building, and you see further cracking and even stepped cracking, that would indicate quite a bit of movement that will have to be dealt with.”

In this instance, the footings would need to be stabilised. Left as is, the external wall will lean out and start pulling on the internal walls as they are connected together.

“Sometimes a small crack can be speaking to a bigger problem and sometimes a big crack can be nothing to worry about at all.

“Usually, we’re looking at the way that crack is formulated given the contour of the land - that's going to tell you a lot. If you've got a sloping block and the brickwork on the side of the slope is cracked, you've got foundation movement that needs to be stabilised.”

Having adequate drainage around the perimeter of the home can help prevent or manage water eroding the soil under the foundations.

If you’re dealing with cracking that’s formed a stepped pattern in the brickwork, a process called brick stitching may be enough of a fix.

“It's a bit of a band-aid solution, but quite often it's enough to stabilise where the cracks have formed,” Russell says.

“It’s essentially like getting stitches in your skin. You do the same thing with metal rods across the damaged brickwork and often it will be enough, if it's just minor movement.”

For more significant subsidence, a chemical grout injection into the soil under the foundations might be needed.

“What we call micro-fine chemical grout injection will essentially increase the depth of the footings by injecting a substance that turns the soil underneath into part of the footings. So essentially, where your foundation has been undermined, you're making it a lot deeper. Though it is quite expensive.”

Internal wall cracks

The inside walls of a home take the load from your roof frame, so any issues with internal cracks are often related to problems with your roof or roof frame system.

The cracks you should worry least about are those that run horizontally between the top of your walls and the ceiling. While it can look concerning, this type of cracking, often referred to as cornice cracking, doesn’t indicate a structural issue.

Cracking around doors and window frames is also generally no cause for alarm either, unless they continue to get bigger.

What you will need to keep an eye on are cracks that travel vertically up a wall. McCarthy says this could indicate that the wall has broken away from the other intersection or connected walls.

“With older homes, as they age, the frame distributes the weight differently. So one timber might twist or might be subject to wood rot or other forms of timber damage, so the other timbers have to do more work, often distributing loads in a way they were not intended to.

“With new homes it’s probably more to do with compliance issues and the incorrect installation and distribution of loads between timber members. So, six months or five years down the track and with weather and continual wind loads, a wall might begin breaking and separating from other walls.”

Understanding the cause often involves an in-depth assessment of the roofing timbers. Once the defect is uncovered, carpenters under the instruction of registered builders, can adjust the timbers to cater for the defect.

“They can often add support, relocate and even redistribute loads to better allow the below wall to cope with the weight, notwithstanding the ability to strengthen the wall on its own without even changing the roof frame’s structure or design.”

Sagging or uneven roof

This one is not so much a ‘small’ sign of a bigger problem. If you’re noticing some sagging in your roof, it could potentially already be a much bigger problem.

The rafters, which are joined to the ridge plate at the high point of your roof, are the primary load points, running from the apex of your roof to sit on top of the walls of your home.

Because these timbers are just nailed in, if any detach from the ridge, they will also pull on the tile battens that hold your roof tiles, and with that, it creates a sag in the roof.

Another cause of a sagging roof is where the underpurlin (the timber that is fixed under the rafters and held up by the strutting props) is no longer providing enough support to the rafters. Furthermore, if the strutting props have in any way been compromised, that can result in a sagging underpurlin, transferring the sag to the rafters and then into the roof cover.

Finally, if the roof timbers themselves are just old and are also quite long, they may begin to sag naturally. This is most commonly seen in older homes and homes with a tiled roof cover. The solution is not to treat or replace the timbers, but rather to remove the existing heavy tiles and replace the tiles with a lightweight metal roof cover. This is a great way of straightening the timbers with new timbers, without the need to do costly reframing.

Although it looks alarming, chemical delignification of your roof battens - which your tiles or other roofing material sits on - is in most cases nothing to be too concerned about.

Delignification is the process where the timber’s lignin opens, which results in the swelling of the timber effected by it. But the appearance is usually worse than the problem and in 95 per cent of cases it is isolated to the tile battens only.

Russell McCarthy says if you scrape the surface of the timber and there is a loss of more than 20 per cent of the timber, you should probably consider having that batten replaced.

“Chemical delignification should never be treated by having chemicals applied within your roof space. Be warned that chemicals in your roof space can be flammable and applicators of any chemical must be approved by the health department along with the products used.”

Damp patches on the ceiling

Moisture in ceilings is very often due to gaps or cracks in roofing materials, whether it be cracks in tiles or ridge capping, or rubber washers on metal roofs that have perished.

It may also be from attachments such as skylights and flues where there is a gap in the junction point between the attachment and the roof. This may be due to silicon sealant breaking down over time.

Also very common of course, are blocked gutters, downpipes and roof valleys, which force rain-water to back up into the eaves or in the case of clogged valleys, underneath tiles.

These problems are not hard to rectify. However, a sag in the roof will also create rainwater ingress points and, as mentioned above, this is a far bigger problem to solve.

Ducted air conditioning may also be the cause of a damp ceiling due to the heat exchange creating condensation on the piping. This is a particular problem where there is a kink in the ducting, allowing the condensation to build up and the moisture to pool in one spot. The amount of condensation that can be produced is actually enough to cause damage to the ceiling.

Drain lines from the air conditioner can also be leaking. The indoor line often runs from the unit inside the roof space to the external side of the building and can wear away at the joins and leak into the roof space.

If you have plumbing that runs through the ceiling, there is also the potential for leaks either from the joins in plumbing or a burst line.

Finding the source of dampness in a ceiling can be difficult, especially in roofs that have insulation bats, which can spread the moisture away from the source of the leak.

McCarthy says this type of insulation can spread moisture from a leak up to one metre away from the source.

“With inspections we do in wintertime, we’ll use thermal imaging and thermal inspections because we want to find out which insulation bat in its entirety has got moisture retention, then we can start zooming into why.

“The problem is when you've got runoff and it's quite well distributed throughout the insulation, it becomes really difficult to trace the source and it’s also the perfect condition for mould to grow, and that’s a health hazard due to the dangers associated with mould.”

Damp patches on walls

Showers and other wet areas with inadequate waterproofing are a common cause of damp walls. In older properties the waterproofing membrane behind the tiles may have broken down over time.

Burst pipes in the roof or other roof leaks may also transfer moisture down the walls.

McCarthy says if the dampness is on internal walls around the perimeter of the home, it may be due to the gutter system allowing water to flow into the wall cavity.

“If it gets into your eaves and, it runs into the cavity say over a window, that could impact the window.

“If there's no window and the water can get to the bottom of the cavity and it's not discharged by a weep hole, then it’s going to pond in the cavity and rise and essentially breach your internal wall. And that would be a massive contributor for rising damp.”

“In stud frame homes, the moisture barrier between the external cladding and the timber frame may be incorrectly installed or compromised, allowing water to reach the base of the wall and even allowing water to flood the insulation in the wall. This is also a large contributing factor to damp in the home.”

Signs of termites

Mud tubes are the most obvious signs of termite activity in or around your home, if they are in areas where you can actually see the mud tubes, of course. Another sign is sand trails.

Termites will often travel up the wall cavity then access your roof members at the point where they meet the walls. Unfortunately, this is the hardest area to inspect because it is in a crawl space that is difficult to get to.

Because termites seek out areas high in moisture, they will often come in via the piping in walls and around cracks in concrete around drains in the slab. For this reason, a good place to check for termite activity is under sinks and vanity cabinets, as well as the kick boards at the bottom of cabinets and under bench tops.

If you have timber skirting boards and timber door frames, check around these as well for signs that sections may have been hollowed out.

A sagging roof could also be a sign that termites have already caused some damage.

An annual inspection by a professional pest inspector is essential, especially if there has been termite activity around your home previously or if your termite treatment plan is out of date.