Cracks in Empty Building Building

Cracks in Empty Building Building

INTRODUCTION:
Cracks can occur due to chemical reactions in construction materials, changes in temperature and climate, foundation movements and settling of buildings, environmental stresses like nearby trains, earth quakes etc. Faulty design, bad quality materials, wrong method of construction, weather effects and lots of wear and tear can create cracks in walls, floors and ceilings.

Here are given various reasons of cracks which is applicable to both occupied and un-occupied building. However we shall consider reasons why empty buildings (i.e. un-occupied) cracks easily compared to occupied one.

1) Thermal Movement: All materials expand on heat and contract on cool. Thermal movement in components of structure creates cracks due to tensile of shear stresses which is particularly severe in an empty house. It is one of the most potent causes of cracking in buildings and needs attention which is not commonly attended to in an empty house.

2) Shrinkage: Most building materials expend when they absorb moisture from atmosphere and shrink when they are dry. Cement made materials shrink due to drying up of the moisture used in their construction. This is very severe in empty building as the rate of dryness and moisture absorption is reduced in an occupied house.

3) The local trees put hundreds of pounds or leaves and seeds on the roof each year. If these aren’t regularly mucked out, they flow downhill with the water to the drains, where they stop them up.

The water, especially when it is snowing, weighs 8lbs/ gallon, and there can quickly be several tons of water on our roof which can easily crack down the building

4) A leaking Roof: Over the course of time the water leaches all the glue and materials from the plywood, causing the plywood or roofing to snag and snap, tearing the membrane of the roofing materials. It literally falls in, about years later. Now it’s raining in side.

It’s also likely to be downhill towards the drain, so all the water flows towards it and into the interior of the building.

5) People come in and steal the copper out of the building, ripping and tearing the walls and conduit. People hang out inside and destroy drywall for fun. Paint, feces, etc.

6) The mold starts to grow: Tree seeds take root inside. The mold destroys the drywall and the wet-and-dry process begins to dry on the walls. You wouldn’t believe how fast everything would ‘go back to nature’ if the people weren’t around. If there wasn’t street cleaning, the years particulants and leaves would build a 2″ dirt layer which would cover the pavement, and in a very short order of time tree roots would tear apart the pavement. Dead letter how brick row houses fall apart; the (flat) roof leaks, rotting the cross beams, allowing the walls to bow. gravity pretty much takes over after that.

7) Buildings that are not abandoned are maintained: Wood is protected from rotting, iron and steel is shielded from the environment to slow down rusting, plants are prevented from growing and breaking apart concrete and mortar, etc. Basically, most man-made structures are not designed to be able to withstand the harsh effects of nature without intervention (maintenance).

8) This is a significant factor: Once windows get broken, moisture, plant and animal life can effect ingress. Mould, decay, frost-shattering, animal damage and rot can then occur relatively quickly. All these have a big cosmetic effect and a brick or stone building may be relatively sound structurally but look in extremely poor repair for the reasons arble mentions above.

9) Plants grow and find holes (or make their own) which destabalize infrastructure. Humans living there can prevent this manually.

10) Humidity and massive temperature changes encourages rot and bacteria growth. Humans living there prevent this by having the heat on. Age and light tarnish things (paint, finishes, etc) and causes humans to react with improvements, and increasing standards in building maintenance forces them to fix things that are broken.