We recently undertook a Building Survey on a mid-terrace house in Truro. The property was probably built around 1900 and was of brick and stone construction with double pitched man-made slate covered roofs. The property had a typical two storey rear tenement which had a brick side elevation with a brick and stone gable end and was semi-detached with the neighbour to the right. The property was generally very dated and run down but had been maintained in a watertight condition.

Amongst our observations, it was noted that there was a quite minor looking crack just by the soffit boards in the rear left corner as seen in photograph, image 9111. A zoomed in photograph, image 9112 confirmed that this movement was slightly more serious than initially thought in that the crack extended into the brick window head and the fascia board was also leaning. The roof pitch was checked and was seen to be reasonably uniform. However, our inspection from inside the roof space confirmed that the roof rafters below thehorizontal purlin had deflected and one had fractured. In addition, there was significant movement to the brick party wall. In conclusion, this is an example of classic roof spread, probably caused by movement to the party wall and significant structural works will be required.