Time Stamp - How To Clean Headstones

Shawn is joined by Caitlin Abrams, who teaches him how to clean headstones.

[@ThomasDeP]

Thanks Caitlin! Youre awesome.

[@manujain661]

I am in love with u . "LOVE IS PATIENT" ,seems I have been resurrected

[@Troy-Echo]

Watch where she sprays in the opening seconds of the video. She's over spraying past the side of the tombstone and the spray is hitting the grass past the tombstone. At the end of the video where you see the 'after' photos, you'll see those sections of grass are dead. I covered why in my post from a few days ago. Another thing I noticed that's worth pointing out. You do not need to start spraying at the bottom and apply more while moving upwards on tombstones. Salespeople make more money based on how much product they sell, so they encourage people to spray this way because it creates excess runoff which means you use more product, thus they make more money selling your product. D2 cleans slowly compared to bleach, and does not bleach away color, so spraying from the top down will save you product and money and leave less D2 on the ground to kill plants. Even cleaning roofs and houses for 10 years using bleach, which is what is recommended by the respective manufacturers, the only instance I saw where spraying from the bottom up would matter was on a wood house. The person spraying the bleach and surfactant mixture started at the top and everything worked perfectly because they were able to keep up with the coverage working their way down. However, when the runoff hit the top of a window, the window acted like a dam and the bleach built up and started running down the sides of the window in thin streams of concentrated bleach. This left a thin bleached line on the wood on both sides of the windows and no amount of follow up applications would balance out the color. D2 doesn't change color by bleaching, and the color change takes weeks and months for the full change, not seconds as with bleach. Save your money and product, and spray top down. Also rinse any overspray from plants, or better yet, just spray so you never have overspray leaving the stone. When you get to the corners, just move and spay so you hit the side and front at the same time versus how she sprays in the beginning.

[@dwuagneux]

Hi Cartland, I love your work. We live in Castleton; my family has been in VT since before the Revolution. We have a tradition of picnicking in historic cemeteries as a way to teach our children about people and places over time. I hope to put what I’ve learned from you to work here in our village later this summer. Keep those videos coming; love them!

[@Edsnyder486]

Amazing thanks

[@Headstoneman]

You could certainly save a lot of money by using about one tenth of the D/2 that you applied to that stone. You are doing great work!

[@kaywee4200]

I want to do this. I'm from Pennsylvania. I need to do this. Help please 🥺

[@evandavies5963]

I’m hoping to restore a old old family plot there are 5 stones

[@bezzerwizzer6448]

This uploader is not who made the video, right ?. Where can i find manic pixi mother something? The one who are doing the work , the search and stuff?

[@k.p.janolis9548]

Can you purchase D2 from a home improvement store?

[@ronhilborn9410]

No, you need to order through a distributor. It’s not a product you can find in Home Depot or Walmart

[@teresacolvin8377]

You can order online from Walmart. Not sure if it is carried in the store though.

[@Troy-Echo]

DO NOTS of tombstone cleaning. Do not clean tombstones that are not firmly attached to the base unless just applying a spray. Do not use a brush or you may knock the stone over and break it. Report this to the agency managing the graveyard so they can take steps to fix the issue. Do not clean tombstones that are flaking. This can hasten the removal of a damaged section of the stone. Pressure washers (as mentioned) can cut into stones and cause damage. Sandstone type markers are extremely soft and pressure washing them can cause a great deal of damage. On other stones, it will erode the surface, and this will make the biggest visible damage on the fine etchings and corners. Bleach - any bleach. Liquid bleach is NaOCl. This is sodium hypochlorite, and when the chemical reaction is complete, the oxygen molecule is taken out of the formula leaving NaCl, sodium chloride, AKA table salt. Salt dissolves fully in water, and the water and salt will penetrate into the stone. As salt dries, it crystalizes and expands which will eat away at the fine etchings and stone. Each time the salt gets wet, it dissolves, then crystalizes as it dries, and this repeats. D2 will give the same cleaning effect, but it will just take some time, but D2 will not damage the stone. Powdered bleach - not quite as harmful, but powdered bleach is CaOCl, or calcium hypochlorite. Once the chemical reaction is complete, you're left with CaCl or calcium chloride. Plants love the calcium, but if you've ever tried cleaning calcium deposits from inside your house, you know what a pain it can be. When the powdered bleach dries, if you don't rinse it away fast enough, you'll have calcium spots on the tombstone. Rain will eventually rinse this away, but it will not be fast. Worse, once you get the calcium inside the stone, who knows how long that would be, and how bad the white calcium would make the stone appear. Metal brushes or scrapers - stone is hard, but still soft enough that a metal scraper can leave scratches from the edges of the scraper or break off the edges of engraving. Metal brushes can score the stone and the engraving. It's better to use nylon or soft bristled brushes and soft plastic scrapers, or wooden scrapers similar to popsicle sticks. They will give way easily and not damage the stone. Power tools - no electric drills or other power tools. They can cause damage as well. The only powered device I'd not consider damaging would be an electric toothbrush with mild to medium bristles. A nylon brush will be the best bet in most cases, or toothpicks or similar wooden pointed items for getting into places like sharp engravings for letters like "V" or "A". Although personally, a wooden toothpick would still be my first choice followed up with small nylon brush and thoroughly flushing the area with water, and repeating the cleaning and rinsing until the area is clean. I'd still recommend wearing some sort of protective eyewear. There's no force involved, so sunglasses or prescription glasses will suffice. Although D2 isn't toxic, if you're cleaning and fling D2, algae, moss, mold, lichen, etc. into your eye, it's not going to feel good, and you may not have an easy way to adequately rinse your eyes in a graveyard. You may still want to consider wearing gloves while doing this work. Wet and Forget - although technically 'approved' for tombstone cleaning, I'd personally recommend against it. W&F is a quant. ammonia as is D2, but as mentioned above with the bleaches and salt and calcium pulling to the stone, W&F will do the same. For the life of me I will never understand why anybody approved W&F as it contains a blue dye. Can you imagine cleaning a pure white marble tombstone and using a product with a blue dye built in? The blue dye will go into the stone just as easily as salt or calcium, so that just seems insane to me. I bought a gallon of the 6x W&F, but even after diluting the concentrate with 5 parts water and 1 part W&F concentrate, the amount of blue dye is still more than I'd ever consider using on a tombstone.