Matching New Brick on a Michigan Elevator Shaft Addition

What was wrong

Two stories went onto the elevator shaft. The brick laid on the addition did not match the brick already on the building, so the shaft stood as a flat pale block against a mottled red wall. The file states the issue in eight words: the customer was looking for a better match.

The form marks it hired by the mason or contractor. The storyline names the building owner as the one who added the two stories.

What was done

Mineral stain, brushed on by hand, on the units that were off. Not one color over the whole shaft: the file records the correction as staining the off colored brick, which is why the finished face still reads as several brick colors rather than one.

What twenty-one years prove

Same shaft, same tower. In 1998 the addition was a flat buff plane beside a mottled red wall; in 2019 its face carries the same mixed reds, tans and dark units as the wall next to it. On the certification scale that is Platinum, which covers twenty years and over and is the top of the scale. As of 2026 the work is twenty-eight 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 215, transcribed beside the scan so it can be read on a phone and by a search engine.