Control joints, rendered over
The gap in the wall that is meant to be there.
In short: Render over control joints and broken articulation joints at a Tallawong handover.
What a control joint is for
Rendered and Hebel walls move with temperature and with the ground. Control joints are deliberate breaks where that movement can happen without cracking the finish.
How they get lost
The renderer trowels straight across the joint for a neat finish. It looks better on the day and cracks within a season.
What we recorded
At a Tallawong handover in March 2025, render covered control joints, an articulation joint stopped partway up the wall and a Hebel panel joint was filled instead of sealed to depth.
Continuous or nothing
A joint must run from the footing to the top of the wall. One that stops halfway just moves the crack to where it ends.
The repair
Cut the render back, clean the joint and fill it with a flexible sealant. Simple at handover, harder once the owner has painted.
Written by our local inspection team from work carried out in Tallawong. Licensed building practitioners, NSW Fair Trading licence 366177C.
