The Sinking Riverbed
The city sits on an old riverbed. The ground isn't solid earth; it is soft silt. It shifts constantly. It has no structural strength.
We see heavy granite markers sinking straight down into the turf. The earth literally swallows them. A flat marker can drop two inches in a single rainy season. The grass grows over the top, and the memorial vanishes.
This is destructive. When a stone sinks, lawnmowers run right over it. The blades chip the edges and gouge the face. If you are searching for tombstone repair and restoration because you can't find a plot, it is likely buried. We probe the ground to find the edges. We cut back the sod. We lift the sunken marker and pack the base with structural gravel. This creates a floating pad that keeps the stone visible and safe from mower blades.
Freeway Grease
The I-10 cuts through the city. It pumps out diesel exhaust non-stop. This isn't dry dust. It is oily carbon and tire rubber. It settles on the cemeteries in a thick, black layer.
The sun cooks this grime. It cures into a chemical seal. It is sticky grease. Rain cannot clean it. Water slides right off the oil. It just collects more dirt every day, creating a thick black crust.
Standard soap just spreads the mess around. You cannot clean oil with water. Tending uses industrial grave site cleaning services. We use heavy-duty degreasers to strip this petroleum glaze. We break the chemical bond and lift the soot out of the pores, getting down to the bare stone without burning the surface.
Pioneer Marble Rot
Savanna Memorial Park holds the history of the Santa Fe Trail. Many of these pioneer markers are soft marble. The air in the San Gabriel Valley is acidic. It traps smog.
This acid attacks the calcium in the marble. It dissolves the binders that hold the stone together. The face loses its structure. It turns rough and grainy. We call this "sugaring." If you rub the surface, it sheds grains like sand.
If you are searching for headstone cleaning services near me for an old marble stone, be careful. Power washing will destroy it. We use gentle consolidation techniques. We clean it with soft bristles and apply a hardener to stop the stone from dusting away completely.
Hard Water Calcification
To keep the grass green in the valley heat, the irrigation runs hard. The water is full of minerals. When it hits a hot black granite marker, it boils off instantly.
It leaves a white calcium deposit behind. It looks like white cement splatter. It bonds to the stone. We use specialized cleaning stone gravestones chemistry to dissolve this scale. We melt the mineral armor away safely, revealing the dark contrast of the memorial.
