Causes of damage

Question

What are the movements and cracking in the housing superstructure?

Answer 1

Causes of damage:

Movements and cracking in the housing superstructure can be caused by a number of factors that are not linked to the adequacy of the building’s foundations. These other factors include, but are not limited to, frost attack, thermal expansion and contraction of building materials, drying shrinkage and chemical attack of construction materials, poor design detailing and workmanship, and the weakening of construction materials with time, often due to lack of maintenance. These factors generally result in levels of damage limited to the aesthetic categories as defined by the BRE classification, and at these lower levels of damage it can be difficult to distinguish damage resulting from these factors from those associated with movements in the underlying ground.

Although aesthetic damage cannot usually be attributed to foundation movements, it is recognised that damage in the higher categories of serviceability and structural damage is commonly caused by movements of the foundations.