Walls buckling

Ellis Kinney · Feb 19, 2021

Was watching the tv news last night and a couple of videos showed walls buckling in Texas due to weight of snow. Looked like horizontal cracks about 4 feet off the ground. I don't see how that can even be possible. How can an outside wall of a house not have enough material in it to keep it from buckling? Ellis

fastfarmall · Feb 19, 2021

It does seem strange the the rook can stand the weight and not the wall's, unless the studs were on 48 inch centers, i had two feet of snow on mine two years ago, it never creeked, but had a neighbor who had a 70 wide machine shed come down in the middle, but that was due to poor metal scabbing, it pulled out of the wood, and a very small amount of it! His rafters were 8 foot on centers!

rrman61 · Feb 19, 2021

Idk the answer but I do know theres no such thing as snow load down here as to roofs(and our roofs are not high peaked for the most part)

DoubleO7 · Feb 19, 2021

Not knowing what you were looking at, I can only guess that the cracks in the interior wall is from water damage after the overhead water lines burst.
Much drywall is put in with the sheets running horizontal.
The first seam being four feet up the wall.

Geo-TH,In · Feb 19, 2021

Blizzard of 78 pushed roofs down. Neighbor's old house wasn't constructed with trusses. So the downward weight of the SNOW pushed on the rafters which pushed top of the walls outwards. George

Ellis Kinney · Feb 19, 2021

These were views from the outside of houses with a brick veneer. Just can't imagine. Ellis

dcarp · Feb 19, 2021

Most of the walls here with a brick veneer have an inch space between the sheathing and the brick. My guess would be broken water line then the water filled the space and froze pushing the brick out. There are weep spaces at the bottom of the brick but insects usually fill them up.

showcrop · Feb 19, 2021

(quoted from post at 08:33:27 02/19/21)
Not knowing what you were looking at, I can only guess that the cracks in the interior wall is from water damage after the overhead water lines burst.
Much drywall is put in with the sheets running horizontal.
The first seam being four feet up the wall.

The seam is supposed to be four feet down from the ceiling, so that it is less likely to be noticed.

Jason the Red · Feb 19, 2021

Sounds like frost heave moving the foundation may be cracking the drywall joints. Sheetrock would likely be hung "laid down" starting from the ceiling, so horizontal joints would be roughly 4' up, depending on wall height.

AL Moyer · Feb 19, 2021

George, If there were collar beams/ceiling joist at the top of the wall it wouldn't spread, with a cathedral ceiling you use a heavier ridge beam !

1948CaseVAI · Feb 19, 2021

I can't figure out why that is not intuitive to you - it is to me. The roof has trusses under it for support and honestly most of the trusses supply more support than required to simply hold itself up. Something has to give when the load is excessive and the walls are next in line. Intuitive.

Particularly with brick as there are built-in horizontal weak lines between the rows. Our building code only requires a non-flawed stud in every third position. The studs between can be partially from pith where part of the stud is missing on one end.

Many homes in the south were built by Pulte. They have mastered cheapest construction. My sister in Arlington lost much of her ceiling because of broken uninsulated pipes running in the attic.

dpendzic · Feb 19, 2021

any vertical structure element will buckle if there is enough load on it and it is not restrained laterally enough for that vertical load--

Vito · Feb 19, 2021

Al,

Collar ties are to balance out the wind loads. A structural ridge, if top loaded, takes the weight off of the outside walls. You are correct on the ceiling joists holding the outside walls together.

Vito

john in la · Feb 19, 2021

As dcarp said a house with a brick veneer in the south is not really a veneer in it is not attached to the interior wall.
It is more of a stand alone facade that has a inch air space between the brick wall and the interior wall.

Now with that in mind the water faucet on the side of the house comes out the interior wall; crosses the air space; and sticks threw the brick facade.
So any portion of the pipe that sticks out the interior wall is not insulated.
It would be very easy for the pipe to bust in this air space with the temperatures we have had this week.
If the drain in the bottom of the bricks is plugged; from either a bug; or someone sticking steel wool in the hole to keep bugs out; the wall could easily fill with water pushing the brick facade away from the home.

Stephen Newell · Feb 19, 2021

Something else is going on. There wasn't enough snow to create enough weight for a wall to fail. The roof would go first.

Raptor44 · Feb 21, 2021

If the place in question was Houston, the answer could possibly be that so many homes in Houston area are built over swamps. The soil is very unstable and peoples slabs need to be fixed every so many years. Freezing would not help this issue. While visiting my daughter in Houston and walking around the neighborhood I noticed many houses with cracked outer walls. one end of house leaning. This was in the summer.

Walls buckling

Ellis Kinney

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fastfarmall

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rrman61

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DoubleO7

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Geo-TH,In

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Ellis Kinney

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dcarp

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showcrop

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Jason the Red

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AL Moyer

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1948CaseVAI

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dpendzic

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Vito

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john in la

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Stephen Newell

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Raptor44

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