A: 

are the section1 and section 2 floated ? if so add a div with clear:both after the expandable divs..

Gaby
A: 

Worked it out! I knew as soon as I posted all that info it would just jump into my head!

The problem was that the container div I wanted to expand had it's corners curved using curvycorners - this meant that IE couldn't re-render it I guess, so I just took the rounding off and added another div below with the rounded corners.

Thanks to the people who helped.

slugmandrew