The porch corner of the Sylvania house in 2019, light grey brick running one range around the corner past a white post and bracket and a black shutter
Case File 321

Lightening Bands of Dark Brick on a Sylvania Home

Bands of darker brick ran through a few areas of this two-story house. The company that made the brick paid to have them lightened rather than replaced. It was photographed again twenty-one years later and certified then.

Case No. 321
Structure Two-story home
Location Sylvania, Ohio
Stained 1998
Re-photographed 2019
Elapsed 21 years, Platinum level

1998

  1. The porch corner in July 1998, a band of darker brick running through the light wall to the right of a cedar post and bracket, with the camera date burned into the corner Before, 1998 View this photo larger
  2. An applicator on an extension ladder at the right-hand gable of the house in 1998, working on the brick beside the arched upstairs window During, 1998 View this photo larger

What was wrong

Bands of dark brick in a few areas of the house, in the file's words. The brick is a light range, so a run of darker units reads as a stripe from the street. Nothing had failed. The brick manufacturer hired the correction, not the homeowner.

What was done

Mineral stain, brushed on by hand. The file records one correction: we lightened the bands. The storyline is candid that only the before pictures survive from 1998, so whether the mortar was stained with the brick is not recorded.

2019, twenty-one years on

  1. The porch corner in 2019, light brick running one range around the outside corner beside a white post and bracket, a black shutter on the left and the porch window on the right 2019 View this photo larger
  2. The whole front of the two-story house from the street in 2019, light brick under white siding gables and a grey roof, with the certification stamp in the corner After, 2019 View this photo larger
  3. Looking up at the porch roof and the right-hand gable in 2019, light brick around the front door and the arched upstairs window under white siding 2019 View this photo larger
  4. The side gable of the house in 2019, light brick around a shuttered window with a segmental brick arch, the front walk curving past it under a tree 21 Years After View this photo larger

What twenty-one years prove

The porch corner in 1998 and the same corner in 2019. The roof and the porch trim changed in between; the brick reads as one range. On the certification scale that is Platinum, which covers twenty years and over. 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 321, 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 321, filled in and signed View the signed form full size
Project name
Sylvania, OH 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 bands of dark brick in a few areas of the house."
What was corrected
"We lightened the bands."
Storyline
"We only have the before pictures from 21 years ago (2019), not the after pictures so we are not sure if we stained the mortar as well as the brick."
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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