Caskets, Liners, Vaults & Monuments

Earth Burial: A Tradition in Simplicity

What is a "traditional" funeral?
In early America, home funerals were the practice everywhere, and each community had a group of women who came in to help with the "laying out of the dead." Visitation was held in the front parlor followed by a procession to the church and cemetery.

At the time of the Civil War, embalming came into practice for shipping bodies over a long distance. By the turn of the century, the newly formed National Funeral Directors Association was pressing its members to consider themselves "professionals," not tradesmen as the earlier coffin-makers had been. Regular use of embalming was encouraged, and the new "professionals" used it to suggest they were keepers of the public health.

However, according to a recent opinion from the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, GA, there is no public health purpose served by embalming. It is not required by law except in unusual circumstances by a very few states. Refrigeration is the usual alternative to embalming when the body must be preserved for later disposition. In other countries embalming is rarely used. (See What You Should Know about Embalming)

In some parts of North America, religious and ethnic groups have maintained the practice of caring for their own dead. With the spread of the Hospice movement, families are assuming more responsibility at the time of death, and home or church funerals are again returning. Those who have been involved with such funerals have found them therapeutic and meaningful, with costs being minimal.

When the term "traditional" is used it generally means:

• A time of visitation with the family, during which the casket may be present ("viewing" is most often done by the immediate family and friends during private time),
• A religious service in a church,
• And/or a graveside ceremony for earth burial of the body or cremated remains.

The cost of funerals in recent years has risen to $5,000 or more, not including cemetery and monument expense. Ask the funeral home, if you use one, whether "professional services" are billed at a fixed fee, or by the hour. The more responsibility a family assumes, the more affordable a funeral can be. Schedule visitation and services at the home or church to limit costs. If there is no mention of a funeral home, your paper might print the obituary free. Perhaps a mortuary will be used only to transport a body or for refrigeration until the time of the funeral.

In fact, in most states, family members can file the death certificate and permits, allowing the family or a church group to handle all death arrangements without the use of a mortician. Some FCA affiliates arrange with cooperating funeral directors to provide a "traditional" funeral at a cost of under $1,000. For many people, this will be the most convenient choice. If that option is not available in your area, there are books that provide useful details for family involvement.

Caskets
The caskets sold by most funeral homes are usually marked up significantly above wholesale costs. Price lists compiled by the Interfaith Funeral Information Committee, in Phoenix, AZ, indicate the average retail cost of a casket is 2.5 to 5 times the wholesale cost, with some mortuaries charging up to 13 times the wholesale cost.

Lighting and arrangement are used to influence extravagant spending, with low-cost containers often kept in the basement or garage, if stocked at all. No casket, air-tight or sealed, renders any additional preservation.

The "minimum container" often used for cremation, is equally appropriate for earth burial. It is usually a simple wood box-or cardboard and wood-that should cost less than $100. If the casket is to be present during visitation or the funeral, it can be draped with cloth of the family's choosing.

Mortuaries which serve memorial societies usually use an attractive cloth-covered particle-board casket, the cost of which is included in the special modest price an affiliate has arranged for members.

Many families have found personal satisfaction in building and decorating a casket together. Ernest Morgan's book, Dealing Creatively with Death contains instructions for making a plywood coffin.

If you have built a casket, or purchased one from elsewhere, a funeral home may try to charge a handling fee. The Federal Trade Commission has prohibited such "third-party handling fees," and made such charges illegal.
Cemetery Costs

If you, or others close to you, own country property-tside the village or city limits, home body burial may be a low-cost option in many states. In fact, this is what our great-grandparents did years ago, so this is not a new idea. You can plan a traditional church or home service, or even a graveside one. All local permits must be in order first.
In some parts of the country, a plot in a church cemetery or a town-owned cemetery is not too expensive, $100 to $300. There are for-profit cemeteries with sites costing much, much more. A lot in a national cemetery is free of charge to veterans and immediate family, but there may not be one nearby with space.

When buying a lot in a commercial cemetery, care should be taken to examine the contract. You may be purchasing only the right to be buried in that cemetery, not necessarily in the lot shown to you. In a few instances, unscrupulous salespersons have sold more "lots" than land available.

Many cemetery personnel will go out of their way to help family members make their own arrangements. However, you should expect a charge of several hundred dollars to open and close the gravesite, especially on weekends or holidays. Grave diggers in many areas expect a tip, so be sure to ask about anticipated charges.

Many cemeteries require a grave liner to keep earth from settling after burial. A one-piece "coffin vault" serves the same purpose but costs about twice as much. Some establishments do not mention the cheaper "liner" or even stock it; a questionable practice.

Monuments and Perpetual Care
A permanent marker can be very expensive or not at all costly, depending on your preference and the limitations of the cemetery. Planting flowers, a bush, or a tree are long-lasting but low-cost memorials, when permitted.

Some cemeteries require monuments to be purchased only through them, or charge an excessive handling fee if purchased elsewhere. You should expect a charge of several hundred dollars for "setting" even a modest marker.

Some cemeteries bill a family annually for upkeep of a grave site, but it is now more common for cemeteries to charge an initial fee for "perpetual care." These funds should be placed in trust and not absorbed into the cemetery's general operating fund. When you are dealing with a for-profit cemetery, be sure to ask for an accounting.

A Word About Burial Liners
Written by a Gravedigger
by Paul G. Huffman

For those who choose burial over entombment or cremation, you will make the added selection of a burial container to protect the casket. The available selections include burial liners, lawn crypts and vaults. To make this decision wisely, you not only need to consider the differences among them, but also what it is you're protecting the casket from. In some areas, you will need to purchase one of these from a mortuary. Where I worked, they were sold by the cemetery. Let's get to work.

Starting with burial liners, there are two different types. The cemetery will supply you with either a concrete sectional burial liner or a solid liner box. Rarely do they ask you to choose between the two. Even though the cemetery pays $50 for a sectional and $125 for a solid, they charge you around $250 for either one.

The cemetery will substitute a "sectional" for a "solid" at they're own discretion. It's not the profit from the sale of these burial liners they're after. What they're after is shaving the cost of labor, which means hundreds of dollars more than what they make on liner boxes.
A "sectional" burial liner is assembled in the grave by hand. It consists of six sections. Each section is only about 1¼ inch thick and constructed of concrete reinforced with thin, chicken wire. These panels are grooved to help hold the liner together when assembled. It's about as water proof as a colander and as secure as stacking playing cards in the wind.

What really hold these liners together is the dirt the grave diggers pack in around them. If you were to assemble one of these above ground, the slightest touch would topple it.
The solid, concrete, burial liner boxes measure about 30" high, 33" wide, and 84" long. The concrete is about 1½" thick and reinforced with a heavier gauge iron mesh. This is a well-manufactured product.

The cemetery would actually prefer to give you the more expensive, solid liner box. It's installed in the grave using the digging equipment in seconds. Why then, do they use sectional liners? Because you can break a sectional liner more easily to make it fit in tight areas where a solid box would not. You can pulverize a sectional liner into dust with a common carpenter's hammer.

While digging a grave, it's not uncommon to make alterations in the neighboring liners to make room for the new burial. By that I mean, it's not uncommon to break them. It takes a considerable amount of time for a backhoe to chew away at the solid liner box to break it. It's faster to break a sectional liner to make it fit down in between previous burials. Grave Diggers know all the tricks of the trade to break and fit a sectional to make it look good from up above. As we say, "You just gotta know how to talk to it."

Another reason for using sectional liners is that a backhoe weighs several tons. Add another 1½ tons when it's carrying a solid liner box. Driving over shallow graves could cave them in. That does happen. So if you're selecting a liner box, insist on the solid liner box. Better yet, get it in writing. You should get the superior product for your money.
Now let's talk about lawn crypts. This product is more solidly constructed than any type of burial liner. It's double the height of a liner box because it sleeps two. An inset cover separates the two burials. The cemetery excavates entire sections at once and installs the lawn crypts side by side. Then they replace the gravel with fine sand, top dress it with loam, and seed or sod the area. This procedure eliminates the need to dig down in between them.

Lawn crypts virtually eliminate the horrors previously associated with burial. The area is not subjected to massive cave-ins, giant boulders, or jack-hammering neighboring burial containers to make room for new burials. These types of problems even cause damage to burial vaults.

Also, the price of the lawn crypt is usually included in the cost of the burial lot, so the cemetery is less greedy on recouping its burial container investment. Perhaps you recall some the more distasteful photographs released by the major news wire services portraying the damage done to many cemeteries in the wake of the 1993 Mississippi River floods. Even after the forceful washing away of the landfill, although completely exposed, the lawn crypts remained intact.

And now, a brief discussion on burial vaults. Burial vaults measure about 2½" thick and are reinforced with a heavy gauge wire mesh. The cover seals onto the vault with a strip of tar methodically sealed into the grooves. It is virtually waterproof because it's also lined with a copper or plastic liner. You get your money's worth, but you will spend a few thousand dollars. If you were to choose the cheapest vault available, you're only getting a glorified burial liner box. The down side of burial vaults is that they are subject to all the problems previous mentioned.

If you do prefer burial, I highly recommend a lawn crypt over burial liners and vaults. It costs about the same as buying two burial liners, but it is a much superior product. Plus, they will cost you well over a thousand dollars less than a burial vault.
* Condensed from "Through the Eyes of a Grave Digger"
Copyright 1996 by Paul G. Huffman

Caskets
Why do Americans tend to spend so much on a casket? Well, you might want a grand display for a day or so. Some are even "more comfortable"-with an innerspring mattress and adjustable head-rest. More likely, however, low-cost caskets simply aren't on display.

As one reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times found out when the funeral shopper she accompanied asked if there wasn't something less expensive than the $2,000+ casket on display: "They led us to a hall on the way to the boiler room." Another woman was taken to a basement full of cobwebs. And another was subjected to the icy sneer: "Oh . . . you want the welfare casket?"

If you're curious about the wholesale cost of caskets, be sure to visit Fr. Henry Wasielewski's website.

Misleading product claims can prod you to spend more, too. So-called "protective" caskets (caskets with a rubber gasket) are supposed to seal, thereby "protecting" the body from "outside elements." This costs. The rubber gasket used to construct a "sealer" casket costs the industry $8. But that $8 gasket is likely to raise the cost of the casket by $800 or more! And what happens to a body in a "sealed" casket? Instead of the natural dehydration that occurs in most climates, anaerobic bacteria take over and the body putrifies-as any grave-digger can attest after an exhumation. (You might want to read "Bones, Bugs, & Batesville" and one woman's fight against consumer fraud.)
Industry-friendly laws and regulations can also force consumers to shell out more than they might want to on a casket. While consumers are free to purchase a casket anywhere they like, some states are still trying to keep out competition by outlawing retail casket sales .

For many years, the industry practice was to wrap the cost of the funeral service into the sale price of caskets-with a mark-up of 300-500-700% or more. Caskets are still marked up many times the wholesale cost, but funeral services are now billed separately.
The average cost of a funeral in the U.S. ($4,500) is almost three times that in Great Britain ($1,650) and more than twice what it is in France ($2,200) or Australia ($2,100). Some of that difference can be attributed to the cost of the casket.

What are the alternatives to an expensive casket?
Be prepared for some resentment from the mortician at losing a big slice of the funeral profit if you obtain a casket elsewhere-your right to do so is protected by federal law. There may be snide remarks about the "poor quality" of what you've purchased. If the bottom doesn't fall out, the "quality" of what you are about to bury in the ground or deliver to a crematory may be irrelevant. On the other hand, some of the hand-made or small-production caskets available may be far superior in quality to something from an automated souped-up assembly line.

Note: The funeral home may NOT add a "handling fee" if you order the casket on your own.
A few states such as Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia-with strong funeral industry lobbies (and corrupt legislators?)-do not permit anyone other than a mortician to sell a casket or coffin. A few brave souls are trying to buck the funeral boards in those states. Or you could look for folks selling or building "hope chests"-a far better name anyway, if you ask me. There is no law in any state to keep you from using a "hope chest" to move a body!

Funeral Consumers Alliance recommends that you NOT prepay for a casket unless you are taking it home to store (a guest bed or coffee table perhaps?). A number of casket stores have gone out of business. Would you be asked to pick up your casket or will you get a refund if that happens? Who knows?
FCA does not recommend any particular casket vendor. This listing is offered as a public service to facilitate consumer shopping. No vendor has paid to be listed.

• Make your own
• Consider a cardboard casket
• Buy locally from casket and urn artisans
• Buy from discount retailers
• Pet caskets and urns

Make your own

• Do-it-yourself coffins for pets and people, Woodcraft, P.O. Box 1686, Parkersburg, WV 26102-1686, 800-225-1153.
• There are directions in Ernest Morgan's book "Dealing Creatively with Death," available through our bookstore or in most libraries.
• Rockler Woodworking and Hardware has an excellent range of casket-building resources-plans, hinges, clasps, etc. Check out their web site.

Ark Wood Caskets
2305 Ashland St. C400
Ashland, OR 97520
888-482-7135

• Simple, collapsible six-piece wood caskets. Ships flat. Goes together in 15 minutes. Dovetail construction; no dowels or nails. Rope handles. $499
  Casket Kits
• Solid pine kits complete with all hardware and bedding. Assemble in less than 1 hour. $450 U.S. Ship anywhere in mainland USA, between $35-$80. Discount for FCA members.

Consider a cardboard casket
A simple cardboard casket might serve very well. (Also called a "cremation case.")
Jack Frediani Products
P.O. Box 1853
Twain Harte, CA 95383
800-837-0701

Brown cardboard cremation container, $9.50 (yep, and some funeral homes charge $125 for this!) plus freight, anywhere in the country.
Superior International Corporation
Cleveland, Ohio
1-800-321-1043

Because of the oversize dimensions, these must be shipped by common carrier. They are sold in groups of 6 and 12 to meet the 100 lb. minimum weight requirement. Although the shipping ($100-150) will cost almost as much as the caskets, these would be a very affordable option for a church or hospice group to keep on hand considering that the cost per item is only about $25 to $50 including shipping.

• white cardboard, parafin-lined, min. of 12-$18.50 each plus shipping
• white cardboard, parafin-lined, half-board reinforcer, min. of 12-$19.50 each plus shipping
• white cardboard, parafin-lined, full-board reinforcer, min. of 6-$34.50 each plus shipping
  

Affordable Viewing Cremation Casket
1386 N. Winchester Blvd.
San Jose, CA 95128
408-621-8883

Corrugated fiberboard cremation casket with "wood look," lined, for $385 shipped
Web site Cremation http://www.funerals.org/faq/crematn.htm

Webliography

All Information taken from:

Burial Liners http://www.funerals.org/faq/vaults.htm

Caskets and other Containers http://www.funerals.org/caskets.htm