Drywall and ceiling repair in Burlingame

Settling soil and cracked walls on Burlingame's east side

Burlingame's General Plan EIR puts the eastern part of the city in a very high liquefaction zone, on young, loose alluvial soil prone to settlement, with impacts that include cracked walls and foundations. An earthquake fault zone on the San Andreas lies about 1,000 feet west of town. Walls record that movement as diagonal cracks off door and window corners.

In the older houses, those cracks are often in plaster, not drywall, and plaster gets patched as plaster so the repair doesn't crack out again along the edge. A photo of the crack with a coin held beside it shows us the width. A crack that keeps growing or a door that suddenly binds is worth a structural look before we patch.

Worth knowing about Burlingame

• The General Plan says Burlingame's 1910s and 1920s Craftsman and vernacular homes were typically built of wood shingles, wood siding, stucco, or a combination of these.
• Burlingame's General Plan describes older neighborhoods full of 1910s and 1920s Craftsman and vernacular homes, 1920s Tudors and Mediterraneans, and postwar ranch and Eichler homes mainly at the north end.
• Almost 30% of Burlingame's 13,798 housing units (29.6%) were built in 1939 or earlier, more than in any later decade; 79.3% predate 1980.