Garage wall shifting..

[b7labelle]

Prior to us moving into this home 6 years ago the garage brick wall had shifted and the crack was filled with some filler (old grey stuff) by some previous owner. This filler had a small crack in it, which I recently filled. The old stuff feels like a firm but is slightly pliable.

I recently noticed the new filler had a small crack running in it. I assume the wall is continuing to shift. I also want to assume this is a brick veneer. I know little about garage construction, but i swear i make it up elsewhere.

It looks like the garage was framed in to accommodate the original shift in the bricks, since the edge of the garage frame is in line with the old grey filler.

The dark spot on top right of the garage door is rust, not a gap.

I'm hoping to gather suggestions from those who have dealt with similar issues on how to stabilize the wall. The joists run left to right in these photos, if that's relevant. I am not in a position to pour thousands of dollars into this garage, but I don't want the veneer to continue to shift. Any suggestions would be really appreciated!

Edit- there is a gutter on this corner of the garage. I'm guessing that at some point it wasn't draining properly and may be the culprit. Only a guess.

 

[PT Doc]

Looks like it has moved a tremendous amount when looking from the exterior. From the interior its tough to see how this is happening. No drywall separation. Looks like something moved about 1 inch based on the brick gaps.

 

[ard]

Any chance that brick was poorly laid- like they did both sides of the door on up, then when 'connecting' across the top the were off by an inch or two?

An extra 16th or 8th in the joint line for each brick across the opening would have done it....but would require redoing immediately as it was laid...

 

[The Cobbler]

Looks like it has moved a tremendous amount when looking from the exterior. From the interior its tough to see how this is happening. No drywall separation. Looks like something moved about 1 inch based on the brick gaps.

concur on all accounts
perhaps the drywall on the inside was added after the major movement .

how level is the head of the door
how plumb are the jambs
check other areas too, suspect there is settling somewhere that will show up with a level

 

[tjdux]

If you have a long enough string or tape measure and a helper measure in an X shape from top corner to opposite bottom corner of every wall you can on the garage.

Each side of the X will be the same if it's square. Anything less than .25 inch is probably ok but anything over an inchx especially of it's a lot more will possibly tell you if whole walls are tilting.

Maybe pull off some of that drywall too just to see whats happening back there on the inside. Also are you sure its wood framing and the brick is veneer?

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[LX-Markham]

To me, looks like a minor crack that somebody tried to fix, poorly, and spackled a bit too much over the adjacent bricks.

 

[Marctrees]

Original mortar, then patched once, and then patched a separate time, it looks like. Marc

 

[Hilltopmasonry]

My guess is they used a 3 1/2 x 3 1/2" steel lintel as opposed to a 3 1/2" x 5 steel lintel and the undersized steel lintel is slightly bowing (sagging) in the middle causing the end to put upward pressure on the bricks by the steels edge. There is only a couple courses of brick so the steel actually heaved them up slightly causing the crack

Is that a 2 car wide garage door?

Can you post a picture of the entire overhead door opening?

Horrible looking patch job, you can use a 30% mixture of muratic acid/water and a steel scraper to clean it up a little


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[The Cobbler]

To me, looks like a minor crack that somebody tried to fix, poorly, and spackled a bit too much over the adjacent bricks.

yeah, could be. OP, can you measure the bricks to see if that's the case?

 

[Jlbc212]

My guess is the brick veneer wasn't properly supported over the door opening. The wood structure behind the brick veneer may be structurally sound. If it was mine, i would be tempted to remove the brick veneer and replace it with vinyl siding.

 

[wssix99]

This is a classic crack that goes along with a foundation movement problem. To get an idea of what is going on, we'd need to see some wide angle shots of the house/garage with all the other cracks mapped out. (You may have some hairline cracks, probably diagonals, on the adjacent side of the house.)

This is a good thread with a similar problem, possibly due to some drainage issues. Post 32 and 33 show the process of going to a wide angle view of the problem: https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=359637&highlight=crack

 

[Thumper68]

I'm in the lintel sagging camp, easy to check with a string line from one end to the other if the middle of the door is lower than the ends there is your culprit.

 

[Hilltopmasonry]

So I looked at a job today that made me think about this thread, here you can clearly see the undersized lintel sagging in the middle and forcing the ends/sides to heave the bricks up which has been tuckpointed to address the cracks. You can see the step crack in the middle and the both ends and obviously the masonry above the garage door sagging down






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[wssix99]

you can clearly see the undersized lintel sagging in the middle and forcing the ends/sides to heave the bricks up which has been tuckpointed to address the cracks. You can see the step crack in the middle and the both ends and obviously the masonry above the garage door sagging down

yes, but that's not what is happening here. right?

 

[kbs2244]

Without a bigger angle PIC from the OP I is hard to say.
But this is a classic problem with undersize headers on 2 car doors.

 

[readhead]

What is the brick sitting on? Steel ledge or brick ledge formed into the foundation? Could be that something is moving near the bottom.