The grey brick side wall of the house in 2019, running unbroken from the garage corner to the far end
Case File 271

Evening Out Blotchy Grey Brick on a Michigan Home

The grey brick on this two-story house went up with off-colored, blotchy units scattered through the range. The company that made the brick paid to have every one of them stained to match. Someone went back twenty-one years later and photographed the same wall.

Case No. 271
Structure Grey brick home
Location Michigan
Stained June 1998
Re-photographed 2019
Elapsed 21 years, Platinum level

1998

  1. The gable end of the house in 1998, with patches of darker off-colored brick scattered across the grey wall under the siding Before, 1998 View this photo larger
  2. The covered front porch in 1998, grey brick between the columns and under the windows, with two rocking chairs on the deck Before, 1998 View this photo larger

What was wrong

Some of the brick did not belong in the range around it. Nothing had failed and nothing was dirty. The file puts it in eight words: there were off-colored, blotchy brick in the range.

It was hired by the brick manufacturer, not the homeowner and not the builder. A brick company decided the color of a finished house it had supplied was its own problem.

What was done

Mineral stain, brushed on by hand, unit by unit. The file records the scope in one line: 100% of the off-colored brick was stained. The units already inside the range were left alone, which is why the wall still reads as a range of greys rather than one flat tone.

2019, twenty-one years on

  1. The side of the house from the driveway in 2019, grey brick running from the garage corner past a basement window to the far end of the wall 2019 View this photo larger
  2. The same gable end twenty-one years later, the brick reading as one grey range with no patches standing out from it 21 Years After View this photo larger
  3. Close raking view along the brick coursing in 2019, each unit a slightly different grey inside a single range 2019 View this photo larger
  4. The rear corner of the house in 2019, the grey brick base turning the corner under the siding above, with lawn and planting in front of it 2019 View this photo larger

What twenty-one years prove

Same gable end, same course lines, and a wall that still reads as one range. On the certification scale that is Platinum, which covers twenty years and over. The line on the file is that 21 years later the stain is still performing well. As of 2026 the work is twenty-eight years old.

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 271, 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 271, filled in and signed View the signed form full size
Project name
MI Residence (1998)
Level
Platinum. 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 off-colored, blotchy brick in the range."
What was corrected
"We stained 100% of the off-colored brick."
Storyline
"21 years later and the stain is still performing well."
Authorized
Donald A. Foster, signed, dated 2019
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Every job we stain enters the same discipline: photographed, revisited, re-photographed.

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