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This post was edited by jstell2008 on Fri, Sep 26, 14 at 20:53

My carpenter tells me that this severe winter, which means that our houses are dry as dust, is really doing damage to carpentry--cracks in moldings, separations of panels from cabinets--Nothing to be done. Recaulk.

Three apples,

Is there attic space above or a 2nd story. If it is attic, and you have trusses, it could be truss uplift.

My house is 8 yrs old. This happens in a couple of rooms every winter. Painted trim. Normal. Probably not as noticeable with non painted trim.

The first couple of yrs we re caulked and painted. Not worth the trouble to do this.

My home was built with crown molding in the living room and then it was added to the bedrooms and dining area soon after, so that's a little over 50 years ago. It's wood, on top of plaster walls and ceilings, and painted white to match the ceiling. The only places where cracks appear are in the corner, but they are very fine - the sort of thing that gets covered when painted. I don't bother filling them but they reappear after a year or two following a new paint job.

Discussed in article below. What's shown in the picture is huge. Can't imagine a large gap like that.

Here is a link that might be useful: Crown caulk cracking

Wasn't a bunch of work done in your house before the the HCAC system was running? I would think it is another problem due to humidity issues.

As others have said, most likely a temperature and humidity condition. Wood may contact in winter and expand in summer, depending on your climatic conditions. This has been an unusually long and cold winter for us, and I notice cracks not seen before in our 33-year old house. Wait until spring and recaulk!

Our cracks look just like that photo.

We have 2 storeys and an attic, which is not finished.

The hvac went in before the trim actually.

They are going to have to put up a scaffold to fix the ones in our foyer. Almost every single room has this gap and it looks pretty awful for a new house. I have friends with houses that are 100 years old and it's not happening in their houses during this extra cold weather.

Is there a way to tell if it's truss uplift? Would it happen on the first floor too?

The worst year for a house is the first year for things like this. I live in a mixed humid climate and these things are expected in the first year.

That being said, I didn't have any issues. But I think it is very reasonable. Drying wood out shrinks it - this winter has been cold and the house gets dry. Do you have a humidifier?

I don't think generally there needs to be a reason - this is just normal - IMO.

Our HVAC guy asked us if we were going to have white painted trim... We are. So he suggested a whole house humidifier, it helps keep the humidity from swinging so drastically low in the winter and thus keeping the wood from shrinking to the point of creating cracks. Although you could also argue that it is better for ones health.

I'm glad we got it. We were acclimating our hardwood floors during the super cold weather. We were able to keep the humidity where is needed to be.

Jen

I guess I don't spend enough time in our attic......we don't have trusses. So, no truss lift!!!

Yes, we have an April Air system, but we keep our humidity at about 40% because otherwise we have serious condensation on the windows.

Hopefully things will calm down in the Spring. Most of the really bad separation is upstairs.