Grave Cleaning & Headstone Restoration in Hammond

Cleaning Up "The Region's" Stone

Hammond sits in the smoke of the mills. We have steel plants, refineries, and train yards on all sides. You can wipe your car hood in the morning and find a layer of gray dust. That same dust covers the cemeteries.

The air here carries heavy grit and iron particles. It settles on the headstones in Elmwood and Concordia constantly. Over time, that turns white marble into a black, crusty slab. Families searching for headstone cleaning services near me often think the stone is burnt. It's not. It is just buried under decades of industrial grime. We have the chemicals to strip that layer off without hurting the stone underneath.

Industrial Fallout and Hard Crust

Smoke from the mills sticks. It doesn't wash off with rain. It bonds to the stone and forms a rock-hard black shell.

This crust becomes part of the surface. A wire brush won't scratch it. Pressure washing just blows chunks of the stone away. We use a chemical poultice. It is a thick paste that we smear on the black scab. It softens the bond chemically. We rinse it away, and the stone looks like rock again, not like a piece of coal.

Iron Dust and Rust Stains

Trains run through Hammond day and night. Metal wheels on metal tracks throw off microscopic iron shavings. This dust floats in the air and lands on flat grave markers.

When it rains, that iron dust rusts instantly. It leaves orange streaks on granite and deep red stains on marble. Standard soap won't touch rust. We use a cleaner that eats iron oxide. It dissolves the rust particles out of the stone pores. We wash it out fast to save the polish, but the orange stains are gone.

Acid Rain Damage

The pollution here used to be worse. Years of acid rain ate into the limestone and marble markers.

The acid dissolves the glue holding the stone together. The surface turns to powder. If you run your hand over it, it feels like sugar. We call this "sugaring." You cannot scrub these stones; you will rub the name right off. We use a consolidant. It soaks into the crumbling stone and hardens it. Then we clean it carefully to kill the mildew without losing any more stone.

Sinking in Sandy Soil

Parts of Hammond sit on old sand ridges. Sand shifts. It drains well, but it moves easily.

We see heavy monuments that have sunk unevenly. They lean to one side. We also see flat markers buried under inches of sod. We fix this by digging out the loose sand. We replace it with compacted angular gravel. The gravel locks together and creates a stable platform. We reset the stone level, and it stays that way.

Lake Effect Freeze-Thaw

We get the lake effect snow, but the ice is the real problem. Wet stone freezes at night and thaws at noon.

This pops the faces off concrete and limestone markers. We call it spalling. We stop the water from getting in. We use a mortar that matches the stone. We fill the gaps and seal the cracks. This stops the ice from prying the stone apart next winter.

Bronze Corrosion

The industrial air destroys bronze veteran plaques. The fumes turn the metal black and green. The corrosion eats into the details.

We don't sandblast these. We strip the corrosion chemically. We get down to the raw bronze. We polish the lettering and apply a high-grade lacquer. This seals the metal against the fumes and the rain. The gold color pops, and the name is legible again.

Service Costs in Hammond

The price depends on the mess. Stripping fifty years of mill soot takes more chemicals and time than a simple moss cleanup. We check the site to give you a hard number.