Frequent Questions

Yes! Water Cremation is merely the method of disposition of the body. Funeral services are to honor and remember your loved one, regardless of disposition.

We can arrange for you to spend time with your loved one for a final goodbye at our care center. For larger memorial services and traditional funerals, we work with a short list of highly vetted full-service funeral homes, and we are happy to connect you with one.

Whatever your or your loved ones wishes for memorialization, calling us is a good first step. If it winds up making more sense for you to work with a different funeral home, we will point you in the right direction.

Yes! Please start here if you would like to pre-arrange for yourself or for a loved one.

There are several types of important information to bring: 

• Advance Directives - If there are any written advance directives concerning disposition and/or memorialization, please bring them with you. These instructions may be found in a will, or there may be a formally witnessed disposition directive, funeral pre-arrangements, or a pre-need contract.
• Military Discharge Papers
• Details on any cemetery property owned by the deceased or the family (grave plot, columbarium space, etc.)
• Recent photograph of the deceased and any personal effects that you wish to be included if there is to be a viewing

Additionally, you will need to know certain specific information on the deceased: 

• Full legal name
• Address
• Marital status
• Social security number
• Date of birth
• Place of birth (city, province, country)
• Occupation or profession
• Parents' names, including mother's maiden name
• Next of kin and other survivors

Alkaline Hydrolysis is the technical name for our process. We decided to use Water Cremation because it felt the clearest of the terms out there. Confusingly, there are many other names used to describe the same thing — Resomation, Aquamation, Bio Cremation, Fireless Cremation, Green Cremation, and Dissolution. We hope the whole industry can agree on a single term at some point soon. Until then, we’re going with Water Cremation.

Yes! At the end of a water cremation, you will receive an urn full of cremated remains similar to what you would get from a flame cremation, with a couple of small differences: There will be about 20% more cremated remains at the end of the process; and because no flames are involved, the remains themselves are white instead of gray.

No! This is a common misconception. Water Cremation uses potassium hydroxide, which is at the opposite end of the pH scale from acid. Potassium makes up 2.5% of the Earth’s crust and is commonly used in cleaning and cosmetic products. We use approximately 95% water and 5% potassium hydroxide in our process.

No! Because pacemakers contain batteries, they need to be removed prior to flame cremations so they do not explode when exposed to very high temperaturess. Water Cremation's gentle process uses lower temperatures, so implants do not need to be surgically removed beforehand.

The funeral director's job is to assist in various ways to help you through the loss of a loved one. A funeral director provides bereavement and consolation services for the living, in addition to making arrangements for disposition and memorial services for the deceased. There are many different roles a funeral director can fulfill depending on the needs of each individual case.

The following list is not all-inclusive, but describes some of the major tasks of a funeral director: 

• Removal and transfer of the deceased from the place of death to the funeral home
• Professional care of the deceased, including embalming, casketing, and cosmetology
• Consulting with family to make arrangements for the funeral service
• Filing certificates, permits, and other required forms
• Obtaining copies of the death certificate
• Creating and publishing the obituary
• Arranging for clergy, music, flowers, transportation, pallbearers, and special fraternal or military services
• Directing and managing the funeral service and the funeral procession
• Assisting the family with death-related claims, including Social Security, VA insurance, and grief counseling

Absolutely. Many of the families we serve wish to spend some time with their loved one in our visitation room. During that visit, there are opportunities to personalize the experience, and we take pride in working with you to find meaningful ways to honor your loved one.