Live Oak Tannin Stains
Jacksonville is full of massive Live Oaks. These trees are tough on stone. The leaves and Spanish moss are full of acid. When it rains, the trees drip a dark brown liquid onto the markers below.
The stone drinks this liquid. It acts like a sponge. The dye doesn't stay on the surface; it goes deep into the rock. It looks like the stone is rusting from the inside out. You cannot pressure wash this out. If you try, you are just pushing water against a stain that is trapped inside the granite.
If you are searching for headstone cleaning services near me because the stone looks brown, that is likely tannin. Standard soap won't touch it. We use industrial grave site cleaning services with chemical poultices. We mix a reactive paste and apply it to the stone. It sits there and works. It pulls the brown dye out of the pores like a magnet. We rinse it away, and the stone returns to its natural gray color.
River City Black Algae
The St. Johns River keeps the air heavy and wet. Stone surfaces never really get dry here. They stay damp deep inside. This wet stone is perfect for black algae. It doesn't just grow on top. It digs roots into the stone.
It eats the polish and builds a thick black skin over the name. Scrubbing only kills the top layer. The roots stay alive inside the rock. We use a different approach. We apply a deep-soaking biological inhibitor. It penetrates the stone surface. It kills the roots where they hide. This keeps the memorial clean for a long time because the colony is actually dead.
Sandy Soil Washout
The ground in Jacksonville is mostly loose sand. It doesn't hold weight well. When tropical storms hit, water rushes through the ground. It turns the sand into soup. The foundation loses its footing.
The sand flows away from under the concrete. Heavy monuments sink. They tilt or drop inches below the grass line. If you need tombstone repair and restoration, adding dirt is a waste of time. We dig out the loose soil. We lift the monument back to level. Then we pack the base with angular gravel. These rocks lock together. They create a solid platform that holds the weight, even when the ground turns to mud.
Bronze Salt Rot
Ocean air carries salt. Salt kills bronze. It burns right through the clear coat that protects military markers. Once the metal is exposed, the salt eats the copper. It creates green, chalky spots ("Bronze Disease").
This eats actual holes in the metal face. We use specific cleaning bronze cemetery markers protocols to fix this. We chemically strip the green rot. We neutralize the salt so it stops eating the metal. Then we apply a new, heavy-duty clear coat. This creates a shield that stops the salt air from touching the bronze.
Hard Water Scale
Sprinklers run hard here to fight the heat. The groundwater is full of calcium. When that water hits a hot black headstone, it boils instantly. The water leaves, but the calcium stays.
It bakes onto the hot stone. It builds a hard white shell layer by layer. It looks like cement splatter. You cannot scrape this off without scratching the stone. We use specialized cleaning stone gravestones chemistry. We apply a descaler that melts the white rock back into a liquid. We rinse it away to show the high-contrast polish underneath.
