Matching Five Runs of Brick to a Notre Dame Addition

What was wrong

The original power plant was not built from one brick. The file records five different runs in the existing walls, and a new three-story addition was going up against them. Matching a new building to an old one is hard enough when the old one is a single color; here it was five, and some of the runs did not share a texture.

What was done

The five runs and the mortar were stained to meet the new construction, brick by brick. The file's own summary: color enhanced the existing brick to match the new brick, and it calls the job challenging for exactly the reason above, some of the brick having different textures. Because the stain is absorbed rather than laid on top, the texture of each run survives the match instead of disappearing under a film.

The work was proved before it was finished. A reverse test panel was stained into the wall, an L shape through the brick and the mortar, so the university could see the blend against the untouched brick beside it and approve it before the rest went ahead.

What eleven years prove

Same plant, same viewpoint, and five runs of brick still reading as one wall. On the certification scale that is Silver, which covers ten years and over. The last photographs were taken in 2019 and the file was signed in 2020.

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 059, transcribed so it can be read on a phone and by a search engine.