# New home - settlement cracks



## Paul04 (Jul 26, 2013)

It's coming to the time of year for painting the house! I've been in my new build home for 18 months now and I want to start tackling the cracks around the skirting boards and the walls. Any tips on how to do this or is it just the usual decorators caulk/filler?

Cheers

Paul


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## Prydar (Jul 22, 2015)

Is it a house built by a company or have you built it yourself? If you've bought it from a builder (Story homes or Persimmon for example) you should get in touch and they'll take care of it for you


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## rf860 (Jul 24, 2011)

Prydar said:


> Is it a house built by a company or have you built it yourself? If you've bought it from a builder (Story homes or Persimmon for example) you should get in touch and they'll take care of it for you


This. I've worked for a company with a house building division and they went back after 12 months and fixed all the settlement cracks.


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## Juke_Fan (Jul 12, 2014)

When I did this I was advised that they would look at cracks wider than a pound coin anything less they didn't class as settlement cracks.

In the end I just did all but the worst jobs myself as I could do it when it suited me rather than get a quick once over by the builder.

Use the flexible filler if you do it yourself.


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## danwel (Feb 18, 2007)

I'm in exactly the same position mate and mine are worst around door frames and some skirting boards. I have re punted the top half of the house and the after pit img each room I've gone round with a small bead of decorators caulk and it looks absolutely spot on


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## Paul04 (Jul 26, 2013)

Juke_Fan said:


> When I did this I was advised that they would look at cracks wider than a pound coin anything less they didn't class as settlement cracks.
> 
> In the end I just did all but the worst jobs myself as I could do it when it suited me rather than get a quick once over by the builder.
> 
> Use the flexible filler if you do it yourself.


I had the same response. They only fix anything wider than a pound coin


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## Paul04 (Jul 26, 2013)

The builder is Redrow homes.


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## turbosnoop (Apr 14, 2015)

On the subject of caulk, with ties in with the ops thread, whenever I use caulk , a few months later it always develops cracks , which look unsightly. I always leave it 24 hours before painting, following the instructions, but every time its developed cracks. My house isn't falling down or anything btw lol


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## Prydar (Jul 22, 2015)

Paul04 said:


> I had the same response. They only fix anything wider than a pound coin


That's out of order from my point of view, settlement cracks are going to happen on any new house so really they should be sorted by the builder 12 or 18 months after the house was finished


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