Repair Your Home's Brick or Stucco Cracks

If your home is made of brick or stucco, you may start to notice cracks over time. These cracks can either be hairline cracks or major cracks, but they are typically a sign of a bigger problem with your foundation.

If you notice any cracks in your brick or stucco, whether big or small, it's important to call in a professional before the problem gets worse. Contact our team at LRE Foundation Repair for a free inspection!

The Cause of Cracked Brick or Stucco

Cracks on the exterior of your home are typically signs of a bigger underlying problem with your home's foundation. It takes a lot of pressure for the exterior walls of your home to crack, which is typically only caused when your foundation settles.

Soil Shifts and Foundation Settlement

Foundation settlement is caused by unsupportive soils that can no longer hold the weight of your home. Soils can become displaced during extreme weather conditions from the constant expanding and contracting.

During heavy rains, the soils in the ground retain moisture and expand as they are filled with water. This expansion causes the soils to shift from their original position.

On the contrary, when soils become very dry from hot weather, they can contract and shift positions. The combination of this expansion and contraction in the soils causes them to significantly shift.

The shift in the soils can cause them to become unsupportive to the weight of the home above and cause the foundation to settle. As a result, you may notice cracks on the exterior of your home.

Symptoms of Cracked Brick

There are a few different ways that bricks can crack, and it's important to know how to identify the cracks.

• Horizontal brick cracks: These can be a little harder to spot since the horizontal pattern can blend in with the horizontal lines of the brick layers. Sometimes horizontal brick cracks can either be small hairline cracks, or larger and more obvious cracks.
• Vertical brick cracks: Vertical cracks in your exterior brick walls are also a sign of foundation failure. They can either split the bricks in half or appear only in the mortar between the bricks.
• Stair-step brick cracks: These kinds of cracks are very common for foundation settlement. They appear in the form of stair steps and they crack in between the bricks. These kinds of cracks tend to be more noticeable and can appear as a very large stair-step pattern in your brick walls.

At the first sign of cracked bricks, it's important to call in a professional to see how severe the damage can be. Foundation settlement can be an expensive fix for your home, so it's best to catch the problems early to avoid bigger, more expensive issues.

Symptoms of Cracked Stucco

Stucco is made up of a cement plaster and is used as a decorative exterior wall covering. Since it is mostly used for decorative purposes, it is not as strong as most exterior surfaces and is susceptible to cracks. Stucco is used on many homes throughout Florida, and LRE Foundation Repair provides repair to fix stucco cracks.

There are certain types of cracks in stucco that can help identify the repairs that need to be done. Some cracks may not be as severe as others, and it's important to know the difference.

• Hairline cracks: It isn't out of the ordinary for stucco to show hairline cracks since it is made mostly of plaster. Not all hairline cracks indicate foundation problems, but they could show early signs.
• Cracks in foam trim: The foam trim on stucco can show cracks where the two pieces of trim meet. They can either be caused by poor installation or foundation settlement.
• Spider cracking: This type of cracking appears as a spider web crack on the stucco wall. It rarely indicates foundation settlement and is mostly caused because the base coat did not cure properly.

It's important for homeowners to keep an eye out for any types of stucco cracks. Although they may not indicate foundations settlement, it's a good idea to get a professional opinion.

Cracked Brick and Stucco Repair from LRE Foundation Repair

LRE Foundation Repair has repaired cracked brick and stucco for homeowners throughout Florida since 1989. If you are unsure if the cracks indicate foundation failure, a representative from LRE can provide a free inspection to give you back peace of mind.

Contact us today for your free inspection for cracked brick and stucco repair!