Mudball

Well we are building a concrete block wall house (basement house). The footer is 2 foot wide, 12 inches deep and filled with 4000 psi steel fiber mix along with two runs of rebar around the perimeter of the house footer. The footer concrete is also poured on very hard (chert dirt) ground. The concrete block was motored and stacked last summer. I just noticed this morning that there are already small cracks in the walls through or around where all the window openings are. The cracks are the widest at the top and travel almost all the way down to the footer. The cracks are only where there are opening for the future windows. There is not a roof on yet either.
Can someone tell me if this is normal settling of things or what ?
Thanks

glennjanie

Hello Mudball:
I doubt that your house has settled any; it sounds like you have a good, sound footer under it. The problem is that any masonry construction will crack. Its just the nature of it. Most commercial jobs will feature control joints just for that; its going to crack but you can choose where. One good way to tie it all up is to put re-bar in the block cores, and a bond beam run at the top with 2 bars in it. Fill the cores and the bondbeam with concrete using small pea gravel as your agregate. Make sure the vertical bars stick up enough to bend them over in the bond beam, thus tying the whole wall together. Of course, it would have been nice to have the re-bar running up out of the footer too. Sorry we didn't get to talk about this earlier. Silicone or butyl rubber caulk will cure the cracks you now have.
Glenn

Mudball

Sounds great. It will take some time but at least I can try and get it fixed right or I should say better than it is now.
Thanks