Tempe: The Concrete Oven
Tempe never really cools down. With all the pavement, buildings, and campus concrete, the city holds heat long after sunset. The headstones feel it. They stay hot—and expanded—around the clock. This relentless cycle makes granite weak. It gets "tired." If you notice a monument looking hazy or cracking for no obvious reason, that is heat fatigue. Tending provides specialized grave site cleaning services to help stone resist this constant baking, keeping the material stable when the air temp won't drop below 90 at midnight.
Highway Grease and Black Soot
Look at a map. Tempe is boxed in by the I-10, the 60, and the 202. That means exhaust. Millions of cars drop microscopic oily soot every day. It settles on everything.
This isn't dust you can just brush off. It’s sticky. Rain just smears it into a black film that bonds to the engraving. You need reliable headstone cleaning services near me that use stone-safe degreasers. We lift that traffic film chemically instead of trying to scrub it off, which would just ruin the polish.
Fragile Stone at Double Butte
Go to Double Butte, and you see a different problem. The historic markers there are old and soft. They are literally turning back into sand. The binder holding the stone together is failing. If you attack that with a stiff brush or a power washer, you erase the name forever. Our memorial restoration services focus on consolidation. We apply treatments that harden the surface and stop the flaking. Whether it’s an old pioneer grave or a modern plot, our cemetery plot maintenance keeps the history legible in this aggressive urban environment.
