From the time a house is brand new until the interior needs a new coat
of paint most of the cracking and settleing should be about done.
The problem is that most of the framing lumber is pretty wet when the
walls are built and it takes a bit before things dry twist warp and
shrink,
As for the doors sticking take a square and make sure the corners of
the door frame are square before trimming any wood- it can be a
seasonal thing.
wrote:
I recently bought a house (March 2006 to be exact). The house is about
4 years old cape with walk out basement (built 2001-2002). We had a
home inspector check out the house in February, he noticed a crack in
the drywall in one of the upstairs bedrooms that he said was caused by
the house settling. The inspector also made note that the drywall in
the staircase from 1st to 2nd floor had a little quarter sized bulge
from a poping nail, he said that was normal too.

The people moved out of the house at the end of March and set the
temperature down to 55-60 and then we moved in a week later and put the
temperature back on normal.

After moving everything was good for a few weeks. Sometime in the
beginning of April (less than a month) I noticed that the door to the
upstairs bedroom no longer latched close unless you pulled up on the
door, a few weeks later even pulling up on the door didn't help, it
closes fine but doesn't latch and I notice the gap along the top of the
door is wider on one side than the other.

Towards the end of April I started noticing cracks in the drywall
appearing. Most of the cracks started in the upstairs. The master
bedroom has two hairline cracks (both going directly up to the
ceiling), one above the door that won't latch and another on the
opposite wall right above the window. The upstairs bathroom has a crack
in the corner wall. The upstairs office has a crack above the window
going directly up to the ceiling and the door in this room has a
diagonal crack going from the corner of the door frame.

Downstairs there are three places where I have a crack going from a
door/window frame directly up to the ceiling and finally there is a
crack in the downstairs bathroom between the wall and ceiling.

How much drywall cracking is normal? I am not sure if I should be
worried about this or not. Since I have only been living here for a few
months I thought that I might wait till the fall and see what happens,
I read online from one person that seasonal changes can cause cracks to
appear and then disappear. I am not sure if thats a good approach or
not. I also did make a call to a contractor but after talking with him
I guess I got scared that he didn't seem knowledgable enough, so I want
to find out as much as I can beforehand so I can be more intelligent
about this.

Now for a little bit more info that I am not sure matters. The washer
is on the 1st floor and the people who moved out had a top-loader, I
brought in a front loader. I notice that when I am up in my office
upstairs and the washer spins, I can feel a slight vibration. The
washer itself doesn't seem to too vibrate much but the way the house is
built you can feel the slight vibration. I am not sure if this could be
causing the cracking in the drywall?

My wife is always cold too, so I don't use the A/C too much, probably
much less than the old owners. So could the humidity change in the
house be causing this?