The Case of the Blue Church

 Frederick M. Hueston, PhD  

Stone Care Consultant 

I had the prospect of a few days off to keep me going, but first I had to give a presentation to a bunch of architects and designers at a local trade show.         

The topic is historic restoration which is one of my favorites, as well as my passion. Little did I know that I would be presented with one of the strangest mysteries I have ever seen.

I had just finished my lecture and was into the question and answer session, when a tall gentleman wearing one of those 1970 leisure suits started making his way towards me. 

He seemed kind of shy as if he was afraid to approach me. He just waited around until almost everyone else had left the lecture hall. 

Since he seemed so nervous, I walked up to him and asked if he had a question for me.  He just looked at me and shouted out loud, “Our  church is turning blue!”  

I was taken aback and almost started laughing. For a minute I thought he was just out of his mind. I didn’t know what to say, so I just responded with a, “Really?”  

This time he was a bit quieter and proceeded to tell me that he was the head engineer for the church and its other buildings, and about 6 months ago the granite on the outside of the church started turning blue. 

I had never heard of this happening and asked him where the church was located. He said, “It’s just across the street.” I was waiting to get out of there and start my mini vacation but this was just too strange not to check out. So, I told him that I would like to take a look at it.

I packed up my laptop, (yes, the Stone Detective has a laptop) and headed across the street to see the “smurf” church. The minute I walked out the door I noticed it. I couldn’t believe I didn’t see this on my way in. 

It was about as blue as Papa Smurf. At least the granite was. The base of the church was a limestone and this appeared normal but all the granite was blue. It was obvious that the color was not natural. It was if someone had stained it.  

Mr. Shy Engineer was standing in front of the church and I couldn’t wait to start my line of Colombo-style questioning.  I asked him the following questions:

“When did you start noticing this problem?”

“How long has it been blue?”

“Is it getting worse? Darker? Lighter?”

“Has anyone done any repairs, cleaning, et cetera?”

And I asked him a million other questions as well.  He told me that there was a company that came in and pressure washed the building about a year ago. Bingo, I thought. “Do you know what they used?” 

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I do have the name of the company.”

“Great,” I said, “hopefully they are still in business.” He gave me the restoration company’s name, which ironically I knew the owner. I immediately gave him a call.  

He told me that they cleaned the granite and the limestone with a low pressure water only, no chemicals. But what he said next was the answer. He told me they waited for the stone to dry and applied one application of a consolidant.  

Now, for those of you who don’t know what a consolidant is, it’s a chemical treatment applied to certain stones that are designed to bind loose stone together. You can think of it as taking a bowl of sand and adding some glue to the sand. The loose sand particles are now bonded together.  

Consoildants are common in historic restoration but from time to time some funky reactions take place that can cause discoloration.  This is exactly what was happening with this church. Now for the bad news. There is nothing you can do to remove the blue tint. The good news is that over time, the blue will fade and the stone will return to its normal color.  

I reassured the Shy Engineer that if he could just let nature take its course, the chemicals would eventually weather out, but for now, he would just have to live with the smurf blue coloration. 

He nodded his head and thanked me for my time. Another case solved. Somehow, as I was walking away, I was happy to start my small break, but I couldn’t get that annoying smurf tune out of my head.

The Stone Detective is a fictional character created by Fred Hueston, written to be entertaining and educational. He has written over 33 books on stone and tile installations, fabrication and restoration and also serves as an expert for many legal cases across the world. You can send any email comments to him at fhueston@stoneforensics.com