Oil Field Fallout
Farmington is energy country. The air here is thick with fly ash and residue from the fields. That stuff lands on the monuments and sticks.
Rain won't clean it. It turns that ash into a thick, oily sludge that cakes onto the granite. You can't scrub this off with dish soap. When people call us for headstone cleaning services near me, it's usually because the marker has turned black. We use an industrial solvent designed for petroleum-based dirt. It cuts the grease immediately so we can wash it away.
Cottonwood Bud Stains
The river bottoms are full of Cottonwoods. In the spring, they drop sticky buds on everything. They leave a thick yellow resin that cures in the sun.
Once that sap hardens, it is like epoxy. It looks like rust, but it's organic. Scrapers are useless here; they just scratch the polish. We apply a chemical paste over the spots. It breaks down the resin structure. The stain lifts out of the stone, and we wipe it clean.
River Water Mineral Crust
Irrigation water here comes straight from the San Juan or the Animas. It is full of silt and heavy minerals. When that water dries on a hot stone, it leaves a tan-colored shell.
This isn't just dust. It is a mineral layer baked onto the surface. If you try to chip it off, you will take pieces of the stone with it. We provide professional grave stone cleaning services to remove this safely. We use a buffered acid that eats the minerals but leaves the granite alone. We rinse the sludge away, and the inscription becomes clear again.
Sun-Killed Paint
The sun at this altitude is brutal on paint. It burns the black lithichrome right out of the letters. We see markers every day that are completely unreadable because the paint is gone.
A blank stone doesn't tell a story. We fix that. We scrape out the dry, flaking remains of the old paint. We mask the stone off. Then we re-ink the letters with monument-grade lithichrome. This stuff is tough. It stands up to the UV rays and makes the name sharp again.
Sandblasted by the Wind
Spring winds in the Four Corners carry grit. It acts exactly like sandpaper. On the older upright stones, this wind erosion wears the polish down until it looks dull and matte.
That rough surface traps dirt and encourages moss. We can't put the polish back without taking the stone to a shop, but we can stop the rot. We deep clean the grain and apply a consolidant. It creates a barrier that locks the surface so the wind doesn't strip any more material away.
Sinking in River Loam
Near the rivers, the soil is soft. It turns to soup when it rains. Heavy monuments settle unevenly and start to lean.
A leaning stone is dangerous. We lift it up. We dig out the mud and replace it with a pad of angular gravel. Gravel packs tight and lets the water run through. It gives the monument a solid base that won't wash out in the next storm.
Service Costs in Farmington
We price based on the type of contamination and the repair work needed:
- Industrial Cleaning: Removing oily film and fly ash.
- Resin Removal: Cleaning sticky cottonwood stains.
- Scale Removal: Dissolving hard water mineral deposits.
- Leveling: Resetting stones in soft river soil.
We assess the site. We check the condition. Then we give you a price.
