Hello folks, Kirk and Jay here, with Kirk Giordano plastering.
today is we're going to fix some hairline cracking in this home the home is about a
100 years out old what we what they have here is to have a little bit of settling issues it's not
I wouldn't consider it structural I consider it minor hairline settling issues caused by
the chimney em and also folks there on the street here which is extremely busy you got traffic you
can probably hear it in the background a lot of traffic a couple high-rises next to them so the
ground is moving and it's settling what we're going to do here today is I'm going to show you
we're going to put some caulking in some of these hairline cracks in this area right here say and
what I did is I came in I kind of touched it if it's spongy then it should come out what we're
going to do is we're going to kind of relieve the stress of this wall and there is a little
spongy it's got nowhere to go it's locked in so we're going to remove this by scoring it and how
do we score it well you take a handy dandy little knife like this allow the blade to come out just
about a quarter-inch and lock it in then what we do is we we score it like this we score it go
around and go about eight nine times and we'll take it right down to the wood laughs and then
we'll pull that out clean up that would laugh and replaster that back in and these just just
caulking typical interior caulking for these I want to show you a couple other things while
we're on that subject of why that happened all right guys this is why that hairline cracking
is occurring you've got your chimney here now this chimney I don't know I would I would say
about five tons maybe it's under 10 but as this chimney settles in a hundred years than it will
it'll settle more than the average house because it's solid brick it's heavier and traffic going
by and all the high-rises again you see this gap right here about an eighth of an inch up here we
got about 3/16 of an inch so it's settling a bit but it's a hundred-year-old house what they have
here I walked the house and I thought man this house is built well extremely well so this is
normal and typical guys anybody thinks well gee we have a hundred-year-old chimney and it's not
going to drop down say sixteenth of an inch in a hundred years that's wishful thinking so last
thing I'll do is we'll show you this one more time all right guys opposite wall bedroom what I did is
I saw the cracks here opposite of the other wall and what you do is you just pound on it now this
wall is stable they they said can we remove it you can remove any wall you want guys in the inside of
your house but why all we're going to do is put some caulking in this will this re crack sure
it well when I don't know it's all depends on the house it's it's moving and house this will
move guys especially with three months of rain traffic high-rises being built all around your
your single-story house it should move make guys so we're going to put I'm going to wash my hands
put some caulking in this crack and just squeeze these in but the idea is to relieve some of the
stress in the in the main room the living room here and the rest of this is really simple but
I did to this videos guys I get a lot of folks who call me and say hey I got some serious structural
cracking and I'll come and I'll say that's not serious I've seen serious this I consider on a
scale of one to ten like a one or two it's minor very minor and natural normal guys so we'll show
you how we repair it okay guys what we're doing now is Jay went ahead and dug this out for me hate
digging that plaster out dusty stuff by the way guys on the subject dust Jay had a mask on advice
everybody if you're going to pull plaster off mix wear a mask that stuff goes in your sinuses
it takes forever to get out what I'm doing now is I'm killing the suction I'm making sure there's
no dust otherwise the plaster when he mixes up won't adhere as far as caulking guys this there
are techniques to all this stuff guys I'm using a an acrylic latex plus silicone the idea is I've
already gone over most of these hairline cracks say for example here you squeeze what you want
to do is squeeze the caulking into the crack and just any excess that comes out after you squeeze
the locket into the crack use your hands and just clean up make sure it goes into the crack okay do
you guys need gloves that's up to you my hands are pretty tough so I don't need gloves and plus what
I want to do is I want to squeeze this caulking into the crack and I want when they paint this
for this caulking not to show so we don't want to do this cut you do that it'll show when it's when
it's painted so what we do is it go in circular motions and squeeze it in that crack even further
another thing to guys is a lot of these walls have tape and mud on them where they crack before they
put taping but can you use deep in mud sure you can but taping mud tends to dry up this stays a
little bit more flexible so again that's that's my tip I'll show one more time here with typical
crack go over it and use your finger make sure it goes in there and just go in circular motions and
this stuff too it's it's water clean up guys so it's 35 years on it does it last 35 years probably
I'm no engineer I'm just an applicator but I know if these walls when they move again during winter
this probably some of these will wreak RAC - and say well gee how can we do it permanently you
can't even if you tear all the walls off and redo it the house is still going to move last thing
I'll show you before J mixes me up a little bit of plaster for this and I'm using a compound plastic
compound for this I'll use a lot of this Sikaflex polyurethane caulking for exterior is when I do
laughing on the outside there where that chimney meets the wall it's it's a real sandy finish so
I'm using this more flex more flex is got sand in it I'm sure every caulking company out there
and matter of a year or two are going to have products with sand in them that way the smooth
one is what I want here because I don't want we don't want grit but on the outside I'm going to
switch to this more Fleck anyhow Jay's going to go had mixed me enough to patch this up I'm going to
go ahead and finish caulking all these cracks and surrounding areas and we'll show you how we patch
it up - all right guys I'm finishing up the last bit of this caulking and I've had a lot of people
call me say hey Kirk sometimes I'll caulk a crack and it'll come right back that's the clock in the
morning guys and also the crack comes right back just put some more on it big deal patch it up it
comes back come right back put some more in it sometimes it'll suck into that crack and
it usually even if I'm doing it it'll still suck into that crack just do it twice guys okay and
anybody says what can can you enough had folks say this can you do it where you guarantee those
cracks will never come back I can't we can't guarantee a structural of a house that we les
you're an engineer and even then you can't really guarantee it well now we can't guarantee taxes
they'll always happen here we go guys we're gonna patch this up pull it off either either which way
really doesn't matter guys with this is how this is one way you can patch cracks two guys you can
use this compound but again I kind of prefer the caulking because it's more flexible then say a
taping mud hit here here and now what I'm going to do is I'm going to allow this to set about
15 minutes this is a 20 minute mud it's going to suck up on the woods so in about 10 minutes
it'll be ready for me to put on light laces skip trowel finish on it just like that and I'll show
you even how we do that we let this set a little too long so I'm gonna bring it back to life all
that means is just take it leave a 20 minute mud means 20 minutes and it sets if you have dirty
tools well that'll set it in five minutes so just bringing this back to life got carried away with
doing all that caulk and stuff anyway all I'm doing now is the last part is to put a light
lace texture on so what I'll do is I'll just pull it off here and just skip it I don't know if that
camera will show why don't--why but the idea is a light light skip just to match what they have
pull that last piece off and just knock it down knock it down real tight like there is we try
to give a painted look but that's kind of takes practice and any of you folks who call and fancy
yourselves great trial men yes I can go over the cracks like this with the trial and I often do but
then if you do that you have to know how to trial on same finish which you take that trial and then
yeah you come back over it that's not what I'm trying to show you folks here because that's a
very real good pleasure to do that kind of stuff anyway guys my name is Kirk I'm with Kirk Giordano
plastering way thank you folks for watching and as usual we'll see you guys on the next one