Ready to hire?

Post your job in minutes, browse real reviews and choose who to speak to.Post a job

Need some tips or advice?

Bathroom Fitting

Chasing pipe led to horizontal crack in internal wall. Could this be serious?

Anonymous user 28/02/2024 - 3.46 PM

My builder has put a vertical chase into an internal bathroom wall to conceal pipe for a basin. He chased it out two days ago and fitted the pipe and plastered over it yesterday. This morning I noticed a new horizontal crack in the plaster the full length of both sides of this wall. It's almost dead straight in the bathroom side and a little more uneven on the other side Builder remarked that the chasing had reached a cavity inside the wall Crack is about 3m long and is all at roughly 1ft above the height of the pipe coming out for the bottletrap and about where the basin will be. Basin is not installed yet,. I'm worried that this might be structural and possibly serious, the crack is hairline, but not faint - its quite obvious from across the room. The wall is due to be tiled in 2 days time. Am I right yo worried and should I stop the tiling until it's investigated?

Are you a tradesperson and able to answer this question?

4 Answers

D G Tully Building Services Ltd

Rating: 5 out of 5

Sutton

Purely superficial...he has probably used bonding which naturally shrinks when drying. Once dry maybe open the crack slightly with suitable tool then just face fill with easy fill, should'nt reappear.

Answered10 December 2019

N.C.H Property & Associates Ltd

Rating: 5 out of 5

Norwich

I would say this is nothing to worry about the air line crack on the other side of the wall would o properly come from when they chased the wall for the pipe Slightly scrap out the air line crack and use scrim tape over the top and give two filling coats of easy fill and sand and paint all of wall with two coats of paint The wall in bathroom the plaster has just shrunk a little and cracked the tile will just tile over with no problems hope this helps thanks Nigel

Answered10 December 2019

LU Maintenance

Rating: 5 out of 5

Portsmouth

Ideally a render mix to fill over the pipe work would of been a better way as more stronger of a mix than plaster but should be fine to continue tiling over ....

Answered10 December 2019

hoxbuilders

Rating: 4.9 out of 5

New Wanstead, London

I agree with above trades feedback and there is absolutely no cause for concerns in relation to structural damage. Hairline crack is as a result of using plaster filler however nothing wrong in this process. ideally i would not apply plaster filler in bathroom or near moist surroundings, as plaster absorbs moist. Cover the pipe with Moist resistant boards, then fill gap using sand and cement filler. Once dry you can tile over without any worry. Hope that helps.

Answered11 December 2019