The front of the Franklin School in 2019, its classroom wing and low entrance range reading as one even red brown brick
Case File 251

Darkening Pale Units at the Franklin Elementary School

The brick on this elementary school went up with too many light units in the range. The company that made the brick paid to have a percentage of them darkened rather than have the wall taken down. It was photographed again nineteen years later and certified then.

Case No. 251
Structure Elementary school
Location Ohio
Stained 2000
Re-photographed 2019
Elapsed 19 years, Gold level

2000

  1. A two story school wall in 2000 with an extension ladder and a pole standing against it, the brick a pale uneven tan During, 2000 View this photo larger
  2. The upper wall of the school in 2000, the pale buff brick at the corner running noticeably lighter than the banded field beside it During, 2000 View this photo larger

What was wrong

The brick arrived in a range that ran too light. Nothing had failed and nothing was dirty; the wall simply carried more pale units than the blend was meant to hold. The file puts it in twelve words: there were too many areas of light brick in the range.

It was hired by the brick manufacturer, not the district and not the mason. A brick company treated the color of a finished school it had supplied as its own problem, and paid for staining over tear-out.

What was done

Mineral stain, brushed on by hand, unit by unit. Not one color over the whole wall: a percentage of the light brick was darkened until the range closed up, which is why the finished elevation still reads as several brick colors. The file records a second Ohio school in the same brick, corrected in the same campaign.

2019, nineteen years on

  1. The front of the school in 2019 from the kerb, the two story classroom wing and the low entrance range reading as one even red brown brick After 2019 View this photo larger
  2. The entrance wall in 2019 under its deep timber soffit, a cast stone panel reading The Franklin School set in evenly blended brick 2019 View this photo larger
  3. A side elevation of the school in 2019 running to the corner, the brick even from the ground to the parapet past a canopied doorway 2019 View this photo larger
  4. The low entrance range in 2019 seen along its length above a bench, the brick one consistent red brown range from end to end 19 Years After View this photo larger

What nineteen years prove

Same building, same brick, and a range that is the range it was corrected to. On the certification scale that is Gold, which covers fifteen years and over. As of 2026 the work is twenty-six years old, and the 2019 certification is the most recent record on it.

The signed file

Every certified job gets the same form, signed on the day someone goes back to the building. This is the one for case 251, transcribed beside the scan so it can be read on a phone and by a search engine.

Scan of the case study form for case 251, filled in and signed View the signed form full size
Project name
2nd OH School (2000)
Level
Gold. The scale runs Bronze at seven to nine years, Silver at ten and over, Gold at fifteen and over, Platinum at twenty and over.
Hired by
The brick manufacturer
Reason for project
Complaint or problem
Issue
"There were too many areas of light brick in the range."
What was corrected
"We darkened a percentage of the light brick."
Storyline
"This was the same brick as the other school in Ohio that we fixed, neither school turned out as planned so they hired us to fix both."
Address
"Permission needed to release address"
Authorized
Donald A. Foster, signed, dated 2019
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