Cracks keep coming back at the door corners - normal?

Why they appear there

An opening interrupts the wall, and any movement in the structure concentrates at its corners. Seasonal movement in this climate is real: humidity swings, framing that dries, a slab that moves fractionally. Hairline cracking at those corners is normal behaviour, not a defect.

Repair it properly, once

1. 1Cut out the crack into a clean V.
2. 2Tape it with mesh or paper tape. Caulk alone always comes back.
3. 3Three coats of compound, feathered wide.
4. 4Match the texture, then prime and paint the whole wall rather than spot-painting.

When it is not cosmetic

• Wider than about an eighth of an inch.
• Running diagonally across the wall rather than off the corner.
• The door no longer closes squarely, or the latch has moved.
• Matching cracks in the slab, or stair-step cracking in the exterior stucco.

That pattern is a foundation conversation rather than a drywall one, and the outside evidence is worth photographing first: stucco cracks, cosmetic or structural.

In a new house

Corner cracks and nail pops in the first year are expected as the house dries and settles, and they belong on the warranty list rather than on your own to-do list: what to put on the eleven-month list.

When to repair, and when to wait

If the house is new, wait. Framing dries and settles through the first year, and a crack repaired in month three usually reappears. Put it on the eleven-month list instead.

If the house is older and the crack is new, watch it for a season and mark the ends with a pencil. A crack that stops growing is movement that has finished; one that keeps extending is telling you something about the structure and is worth looking at properly before it is filled.

Painting over a repair

A patched crack that is spot-painted almost always shows, because the sheen and the texture differ from the surrounding wall. Paint the full wall, corner to corner, and match the texture before priming.

If the wall has a heavy texture, ask whoever does the repair to practise the match on a board first. It takes ten minutes and it is the difference between an invisible repair and a permanent patch.