The Red Dirt Problem (Iron Oxide)
If you live in Tyler, you know the Red Dirt. It stains your tires, your driveway, and it stains headstones. That red color is iron rust.
When heavy rain splashes that mud onto a granite base, the iron rusts right into the grain. It goes deep. Scrubbing it with soap is a bad idea. You just grind the red dirt further into the face. It makes the stain permanent.
We treat this like a rust spot on a shirt. We use a chemical poultice—a thick paste—for cleaning stone gravestones. We smear it on and cover it. Over 24 hours, it pulls the iron out of the stone and into the paste. We wash the paste away, and the orange stain goes with it.
Pine Sap (Pitch)
Tyler is deep in the Piney Woods. The cemeteries here are full of Loblolly Pines. They drip sap constantly.
That sap hits the hot granite and cooks. It turns into hard, amber buttons. It makes a sticky mess that traps black dirt and pollen. Water won't touch it. If you try to scrape it off with a blade, you will scratch the polished face of the monument.
We handle this before we even start washing. We use a specific solvent that melts the hardened pitch back into a liquid. Then we use soft rags for grave site cleaning services to wipe the sticky residue away without hurting the finish.
Rose Fertilizer Damage
Tyler is the Rose Capital. People put heavy fertilizer on the rose bushes near the graves.
Fertilizer is full of salt. When it rains, that salt dissolves into the ground. The granite sucks that saltwater up. The sun dries the water out, but the salt stays inside the rock. Over time, those salt crystals grow and create pressure. The face of the stone starts popping off. We call it "spalling." We flood the ground to flush those salts out and stop the peeling.
Lichen "Etching"
Because of the humidity, we get heavy Lichen growth. It’s that crusty green and gray growth on the markers.
Lichen is aggressive. It digs roots into the stone and excretes acid. On a polished marker, this acid eats the shine. It leaves dull, rough spots that you can't fix. People searching for headstone cleaning services near me often want it pressure washed. Pressure washing rips the top off but leaves the roots inside. We use a biocide. It kills the plant down to the root so it releases its grip on the stone gently.
Sandy Soil Washout
The soil here is a mix of sand and iron gravel. It drains water fast, but it moves fast too.
A heavy thunderstorm washes that sand right out from under the concrete footer. The monument loses support and tips over. Shoveling dirt back in is a waste of time. The rain just carries it away again. For permanent tombstone repair and restoration, we pack the hole with angular gravel. The jagged edges lock together. They hold the weight, but let the water run through without washing the foundation away.