An Ohio fire station in 2019 with an apparatus bay open and an engine inside, its stained brick front wall alongside
Case File 024

Blending a Repair Patch Beside an Ohio Fire Station Door

A section of wall beside the door had been repaired with the closest brick available, and the patch showed. The brick to the right of the door was stained in 2005 to make the repair less noticeable. It was photographed again fourteen years later and certified then.

Case No. 024
Structure Fire station
Location Ohio
Stained 2005
Re-photographed 2019
Elapsed 14 years, Silver level

2005

  1. The wall beside the fire station door in 2005, a pale block of replacement brick standing out against the darker weathered brick around it Before, 2005 View this photo larger
  2. The same wall after staining in 2005, the repaired area now reading as part of the brick around it After, 2005 View this photo larger

What was wrong

A section of wall to the right of the door had been repaired. The brick was the closest match the mason could get at the time, and it was not close: paler units with a rougher face set into a weathered wall. The file puts the issue in five words. They wanted a better match.

What was done

Mineral stain, brushed on by hand. The file is exact about the extent, 100% of the brick to the right of the door, and equally exact about what was left alone. In bold: the red brick on the bottom left side was not touched. It does not claim the wall was made perfect either. It records that the wall still has issues, and that the job was to make the repair less noticeable.

2019, fourteen years on

  1. The fire station in 2019 with an apparatus bay open and an engine inside, the stained brick wall and entry door alongside it 2019 View this photo larger
  2. The same entry door and wall in 2019, the stained brick to the right of the door matched to its surroundings, with untouched red brick at the base on the left 14 Years After View this photo larger
  3. Close view of the stained brick at unit scale in 2019, the rough face of the replacement units visible under the blend 2019 View this photo larger
  4. The corner of the fire station in 2019, the stained wall running back from the entry door to the far end of the building 2019 View this photo larger

What fourteen years prove

Same door, same wall, and the stained brick still carries the blend. Beside it the untouched red brick is still red, which makes the file its own control: one wall, two areas, photographed together in 2019. On the certification scale fourteen years is Silver, which covers ten years and over. As of 2026 the work is twenty-one 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 024, 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 024, filled in and signed View the signed form full size
Project name
Ohio Fire Station (2005)
Level
Silver. 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
Mason or contractor, and Other. Both are marked on the form.
Reason for project
Not marked. None of the four boxes is filled in.
Issue
"They wanted a better match."
What was corrected
"We stained 100% of the brick to the right of the door to make the repair 'less noticable'."
Storyline
"They did a repair to the right of the door. It was the closest match they could find when the mason was availible to do the repair. 14 years the staining has held up well. Take a second look at the before and after pictures, you can see the brick used for the repair had a rough texture. The wall still has issues, but we were only hired to make this 'less noticable'. We did not touch any of the red brick on the bottom left side"
Authorized
Donald A. Foster, signed, dated 2019
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