ᐅ Are expansion joints necessary for woodchip wallpaper?

Hello everyone,

We are scheduled to take possession of our new apartment in November. The wallpapering work has already been completed.

During the last inspection of the apartment, we noticed gaps about 2–3 mm (around 0.08–0.12 inches) wide between individual textured wallpaper strips.

Overall, it looks quite unattractive. After consulting with our architect, we received the following feedback:

“The expansion joints between non-load-bearing gypsum board walls and load-bearing walls are necessary so that structural movements do not transfer to the gypsum board walls and cause uncontrolled cracks.”

As a layperson, I am not sure how to evaluate this statement. Is this correct?

Could you please help me?

Thank you!

Between each strip? Then it is definitely something different than what your building supervisor means. If there are very many, it was simply done carelessly.

No, these "expansion joints" are only present in five places within the apartment. The architect was also able to mark them on the apartment floor plan. Such a joint appears whenever a non-load-bearing drywall partition meets a load-bearing wall.

Could someone else please provide feedback on this?

A photo would be helpful.

Unfortunately, I won’t be back in the apartment until the end of this week. For this reason, I searched for similar pictures online. The photo shows a gap, but in my apartment, it is wider—2 mm (0.08 inches).

Then the expansion joint makes sense in my opinion. Maybe it can be slightly concealed, for example by applying a very thin layer of acrylic or something similar. You probably won’t even notice this joint later once the furniture is in place.