Mesa Wind Erosion
Rio Rancho sits high on the mesa. The wind here screams across the open desert, carrying sharp grit. It hits the headstones like a sandblaster.
Over time, this strips the polish right off the granite. The stone turns dull and rough, like unfinished concrete. You can't polish it back to a mirror shine out here. But we can stop the damage. We deep clean the stone pores. Then we apply a stone consolidant. It soaks in and hardens the surface so the wind can't chew any more of it away.
Sugar Sand Washout
The soil up here is loose sugar sand. It offers zero structural support. Wind drifts it away, and rain washes it out from under the heavy concrete bases.
We see heavy monuments sinking or tilting because the sand just drifted away from underneath them. Shoveling more sand back under is a waste of time. We provide professional grave stone cleaning services that include stabilization. We lift the stone. We pack the hole with crushed angular gravel. The gravel locks together and stays put, keeping the marker level.
High Altitude Sun Burn
The UV radiation up here destroys paint. The black lithichrome in the engraved letters doesn't last long. It flakes out, leaving the inscription invisible against the gray stone.
We fix this constantly. We scrape out the dead paint flakes. We clean the grooves with solvent. Then we repaint the letters with high-end monument paint. It bonds to the rock and resists the sun, making the name pop out again.
Hard Water Scale
To keep grass green on the mesa, the sprinklers have to work overtime. The water dries instantly on the hot stone, leaving a white calcium crust.
This scale is hard as rock. It covers the dates and names. Scrubbing creates scratches. We use a buffered acid designed for granite. It softens the mineral deposits chemically. We rinse the white crust away, and the natural stone color returns.
Tumbleweed Traps
Tumbleweeds are a plague here. They pile up against the headstones, trapping moisture and dirt against the granite face.
That trapped moisture breeds bugs and mildew spots. We clear the debris. We clean the stains left behind by the rotting vegetation. We create a clear zone around the marker so the wind blows the weeds past instead of letting them stack up.
Construction Dust
This city is always building. The wind carries fine red dust from the construction zones into the cemeteries. It mixes with dew and turns into a red paste.
It fills the lettering and dries like brick mortar. We clean this out by hand. We use detailing picks to get the hardened mud out of the letters. We don't blast it with pressure because we want to save whatever paint is left.
Service Costs in Rio Rancho
We price based on the exposure and the damage:
- Consolidation: Treating wind-damaged surfaces.
- Stabilization: Resetting stones in loose sand.
- Letter Repainting: Restoring sun-faded text.
- Scale Removal: Dissolving irrigation deposits.
We go to the site. We check the stability. Then we give you a price.


