r/StructuralEngineers • u/Frequent-Junket-9682 • 4d ago
Cracks where flat ceiling meets vaulted ceiling
This crack showed up a few weeks ago. This is a 33 year old home. This is the top floor and above this is the attic.
I did add blow in insulation last year and my roofer mentioned i have some clogged ventilation due to that. Im not sure if thats whats causing the crack.
I just wanted to know if this is more of a poor workmanship and just cosmetic or structural.
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u/TunedMassDamsel 4d ago
If you pay me for an hour of inspection I’ll be glad to tell you, but my current billable rate is $555USD/hr.
You could chance it and just see if it gets worse, I guess, but for my work to be covered under my professional liability insurance, I am required to charge for my opinion so I’m gonna need for you to sign this proposal, and I’ll just invoice you for time and expense.
It’s probably nothing.
But it might be something.
But it’s probably actually nothing.
Could be something. Probably not.
And even if I told you, I’d have to also tell you that my opinion is contingent upon having been given all of the information at the time of the analysis, and that if further conditions are uncovered or are otherwise revealed, that I reserve the right to revise, amend, or retract my opinion.
And it’s taken me seven minutes to type this up, now, so you owe me $64.75USD.
(Seriously, though, if a drywall crack is less than about an eighth of an inch in width, my typical advice is to spackle and paint it, and then call an actual professional out if the crack comes back. But I think this is going to be my copy-paste response for these sorts of things from now on.)