Our guide on foundation movement: signs and causes covers what's happening beneath the house. This piece is about what you can actually notice from inside it, the practical, whole-building checklist worth running through if something feels "off" but you can't immediately point to why.
Beyond the Crack: A Whole-Building Checklist
Cracking is the most visible sign, but it's rarely the only one. Worth checking for, together rather than in isolation:
- Doors and windows that have changed behaviour, sticking, dragging, swinging open on their own, or no longer latching, especially if this happened gradually rather than overnight. See our detailed piece on cracks around doors and windows.
- Floors that feel uneven underfoot, or a marble or ball that visibly rolls to one side of a room when placed on the floor.
- Gaps opening up at skirting boards, where the skirting no longer sits flush against the floor or wall.
- A visible separation between an extension and the original dwelling, where the two sections were built at different times and are now moving independently.
- External signs, such as a path, driveway, or paved area near the house that's cracked or tilted in the same direction as internal symptoms.
Why It's the Pattern, Not Any Single Sign
Any one of these on its own can have an unrelated, minor cause, a door can stick because of humidity, a floor can feel slightly uneven in an older house without anything being wrong structurally. What's worth acting on is two or more of these signs appearing together, particularly if they're new, or if they're getting worse over a period of months rather than staying static. This is a key part of how the movement classification framework in AS 2870, the Australian Standard for residential slabs and footings, actually works in practice, engineers weigh the whole pattern of evidence, not a single measurement in isolation.
What a Site Assessment Actually Checks
A proper assessment goes beyond what's visible on the day. It typically involves a level survey of the floor to measure actual falls across the building, a review of crack widths and locations against the AS 2870 classification, and an assessment of likely cause, whether that's reactive clay movement, drainage, tree influence, or something else. That combination is what turns "something feels off" into an actual answer. See our broader guide on whether a crack is actually structural for the fuller framework.
