The front of the New Baltimore house in 2019, its blended tan and buff brick running from the entry along the wall
Case File 149

Evening Out Blotchy Brick on a New Baltimore Home

The brick on this house went up blotchy, light units sitting beside dark ones across the whole wall. The company that made the brick paid to have it blended by hand in June 2003. It was photographed again sixteen years later and certified then.

Case No. 149
Structure Two-story home
Location New Baltimore, Michigan
Stained June 2003
Re-photographed 2019
Elapsed 16 years, Gold level

2003

  1. The house in June 2003 with the yard still bare dirt, its brick a mixture of cream and darker brown units under cream siding During, 2003 View this photo larger
  2. The same house in June 2003, a ladder up the garage gable at the right and the dirt of the unfinished yard banked against the lower courses of brick During, 2003 View this photo larger

What was wrong

The file puts it in nine words: there were off colored blotchy brick throughout the house. Nothing had failed and nothing was dirty. Light units and dark units sat beside each other with no order to them.

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

What was done

Mineral stain, brushed on by hand, unit by unit. The correction on the form is staining light and dark brick to create a better blend, with one exception it names: the lower mud splash areas. The house was still a building site in June 2003, and clean dry walls are what staining brick needs, so the muddied band at the foot of the walls was left alone.

2019, sixteen years on

  1. The covered front entry and the long brick wall in 2019, the brick reading as one tan and buff range from the porch to the eaves 2019 View this photo larger
  2. An outside brick corner at ground level in 2019, cream, tan and brown units above a bed edged with brick, the frame carrying the Brickman Certified stamp 16 Years After View this photo larger
  3. The side of the house in 2019, its brick holding one tan and buff range along the whole wall behind a shrub, with a glass block basement window at the foot 2019 View this photo larger

What sixteen years prove

Same house, same brick, one range across the wall. On the certification scale that is Gold, which covers fifteen years and over. As of 2026 the work is twenty-three 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 149, transcribed beside the document so it can be read on a phone and by a search engine.

Scan of the case study form for case 149, filled in and signed View the signed form full size
Project name
New Baltimore, MI (2003)
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 off colored blotchy brick throughout the house."
What was corrected
"We stained light and dark brick to create a better blend. Except for the lower "mud splash" areas."
Storyline
"We need clean dry walls to stain brick successfully. When we arrived on site, they had a lot of mud and dirt splashed up on the lower parts of the walls. We could not stain that area, but the areas we did stain look great!"
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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