Exterior cleaning programs for Alpharetta and North Fulton garden style communities, mid rise buildings and condominium associations, worked one building at a time
Thrare Contracting pressure washes apartment communities across Alpharetta and North Fulton for property management companies, ownership groups, community association boards and on site managers. The stock along the GA-400 corridor runs to garden style walk ups, townhome rental developments, wrap decks and mid rise buildings, and one mobilization covers many buildings on a scope that repeats on a budgeted schedule.
The company is Rare Earth Ltd, trading as Thrare Contracting, and it keeps one office: 8735 Dunwoody Pl, Ste R, Atlanta, GA 30350. Rare Earth Ltd has operated since January 19, 2020, and Alpharetta is a service area at the north end of that radius rather than a second location. The credentials a vendor file asks for are DBE and ACDBE certification, MBE certification, small disadvantaged business status, E-Verify enrollment, SAM registration under UEI Z4WKS4UE8NJ6, and CAGE code 9JAV8. Three things a North Fulton owner should never be told this company holds, because it does not: HUBZone, 8(a) and SOC 2. Everything on the held list can be looked up by an owner without a phone call.
Thrare Contracting works an Alpharetta apartment community from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on weekdays and from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday. That is this company's scheduling policy, and it is worth stating plainly that it is not a citation: the Alpharetta Code of Ordinances does not name pressure washing, power washing or exterior cleaning as a restricted activity anywhere in Article V of Chapter 26. A contractor who tells an Alpharetta board that the city has set hours for this specific trade is reading a rule that is not on the page.
What Article V does set is a window around two activities that sit either side of exterior cleaning. Section 26-116(3) states that "construction and demolition activity shall not be performed between the hours of 7:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. on weekdays, before the hour of 9:00 a.m. or after the hour of 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, or at any time on Sunday, unless such activities are deemed emergency work as defined in section 26-113". Emergency work is the only exception paragraph (3) carries, and there is no sound level escape from it. Section 26-116(2) reaches equipment rather than trade, and it carries two exceptions rather than one: commercial or industrial power tools used for landscaping and yard maintenance must be operated with a muffler, and "all motorized equipment used in these activities shall not be operated on a residential property, or within 250 feet of a residential property line, between the hours of 7:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. on weekdays, or before the hour of 9:00 a.m. or after the hour of 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, or at any time on Sunday", unless such activities "are deemed emergency work" or "meet the limits set forth in section 26-114(a)" (Alpharetta Code of Ordinances, Chapter 26, Article V, section 26-116, current through Ord. No. 824, section 1, 4-5-2021, read 2026-09-02).
Neither paragraph names this work, and both bracket the identical window, which is why the policy is modeled on them. A code officer answering a 6:00 a.m. resident complaint about a machine running in a courtyard will reach for whichever of the two paragraphs he thinks fits, and a crew already inside that window has nothing to argue about. That inference belongs to Thrare Contracting, not to the City of Alpharetta, and a board is entitled to see which half is which.
Section 26-114 is a different kind of rule, because it is written about sound rather than about a named activity, but it does not escape the classification question either. Section 26-116 opens "Notwithstanding the provisions of section 26-114(a) and the exceptions in section 26-115", and 26-116(2) ends by providing that "at all other times, the limits set forth in section 26-114(a) do not apply to commercial or industrial power tools and landscaping and yard maintenance equipment". So section 26-114(a) governs a daytime pressure washer unless the work is classed as commercial power tool landscaping or yard maintenance under 26-116(2), in which case the daytime limits are lifted for that equipment. Overnight is the case that does not turn on the classification, because inside the hours 26-116(2) restricts, equipment covered by that paragraph is barred unless it meets section 26-114(a) anyway. Measured at or within the real property line of the receiving property, section 26-114(a) holds a residential or noise sensitive receiving property to 60 dBA between 7:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. and 55 dBA between 11:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m., and allows a commercial or business receiving property 65 dBA and 60 dBA. Section 26-114(c) is stricter again inside a multifamily dwelling, at 55 dBA daytime and 45 dBA from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., "as measured from the closest neighbor's dwelling" (Alpharetta Code of Ordinances, section 26-114, read 2026-09-02).
Two consequences change a bid, and both survive the correction above. First, an overnight deck wash at a garden style Alpharetta community has to hold 55 dBA at the receiving line whichever way the classification falls, which a gas machine parked in a courtyard will not do, so overnight work here is a sound question before it is a scheduling question. Second, a Saturday under this policy starts at 9:00 a.m. and stops at 5:00 p.m., eight hours against twelve on a weekday, so a Saturday reaches fewer buildings and a bidder who prices an Alpharetta Saturday like a weekday has priced the wrong day. Section 26-116(3) does add that if the director of public safety, after consultation with the mayor and council, determines that the prohibitions in that paragraph "would result in loss or inconvenience to any party in interest of such a nature as to warrant special consideration, the director of public safety may issue a renewable 14-day permit for work to be done within the hours of 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.", and that is a discretionary permit attached to the activities the paragraph names, never something to promise a property in advance.
Turnover is the operating line that exterior condition reaches. The National Apartment Association, drawing on its 2019 Survey of Operating Income and Expenses in Rental Housing Communities, puts the apartment turnover rate at 46.8 percent, the conservatively calculated cost of a single move-out at $1,800, and the yearly bill at a 200 unit community above $168,000 (National Apartment Association, Apartment Turnover, dated 2025-03-06, read 2026-09-02). Read 46.8 percent as a 2019 survey result republished in 2025 guidance rather than as this year's rate. NAA's working day guidelines for turning a unit, and the rest of that arithmetic, are quoted in full on the metro Atlanta apartment pressure washing page, which is the hub for the material that does not change between cities.
Alpharetta adds a second pressure that metro Atlanta as a whole does not. A community on Windward Parkway or Encore Parkway is shopped against recently delivered Class A stock a few minutes up the same road, so a prospect walks a breezeway here having walked a two year old breezeway an hour earlier. Exterior condition is the part of that comparison an on site manager can move inside an operating budget, without a capital request and without waiting for a board vote.
An Alpharetta scope is written building by building, and on North Fulton stock the cladding mix decides more of it than the square footage does.
Sequencing is what keeps an occupied Alpharetta community leasable while it is being cleaned: one building is out of service at a time, and never the amenity path.
An Alpharetta quote is built from six inputs and names all six, so a manager can check it line for line against the next bid: building count, stories, cladding by elevation, walkway and parking square footage, access, and how many visits a year.
No per unit figure is published on this page. A number given before anybody has seen the cladding, the water source and where the site drains is a guess wearing a decimal point.
Fiber cement governs much of the newer Alpharetta garden style and townhome rental stock, and the manufacturer publishes a number. James Hardie, in Technical Bulletin #20, "Cleaning James Hardie Primed and ColorPlus Technology Siding", states: "Low pressure water spray, a soft bristle (nonmetal) brush is most suitable for cleaning fiber cement products. If using a pressure washer, care must be taken to ensure that the water stream does not damage the surface of the siding. Using wide fan tips that are kept a minimum of 6 feet from the wall and at pressures under 1500 psi will minimize the chance of damaging the siding." (James Hardie Building Products, Technical Bulletin #20, November 2018, document USTB 20 version 2, read 2026-09-02).
The same bulletin rules out two methods and attaches a warranty consequence. James Hardie states that "sand blasting can damage the fiber cement surface and is not recommended", that "acid washing can damage the fiber cement surface and is not recommended", and that "damage to siding arising from improper cleaning or maintenance may not be covered by the James Hardie warranty". On a community still inside its cladding warranty, an overpowered wash is a warranty question and not only a finish question.
Brick veneer sits below that fiber cement on many North Fulton elevations, and it carries a far lower ceiling. The Brick Industry Association holds brick cleaning to 400 psi measured at the nozzle tip unless the brick manufacturer permits more, treats anything above 800 psi as inappropriate for brick, limits applied cleaning solution to 50 psi, and asks for a 20 square foot trial area left to dry before the result is judged (Brick Industry Association, Technical Notes on Brick Construction 20, "Cleaning Brickwork", August 2018, read 2026-09-02). The verbatim text of those limits, together with the nozzle angle and standoff distance the same document specifies, is quoted on the metro Atlanta apartment page, where brick veneer is the dominant cladding rather than the base course.
Read the two published numbers together: under 1,500 psi at 6 feet for fiber cement, and no more than 400 psi at the nozzle tip for brick. One machine setting cannot be correct for both, and an Alpharetta building with a brick base and fiber cement above needs the setting changed partway up the elevation. Mortar removed by an overpowered tip is a water path into the wall assembly. A manager comparing bids should ask what pressure each bidder runs at the tip per cladding, and note that stucco, EIFS, vinyl and metal panel carry limits neither document covers.
Segmental paver courtyards, paver amenity decks and paver drive aprons show up repeatedly on Alpharetta stock built in the last twenty years, and the thing at risk there is joint sand rather than the paver. The Concrete Masonry and Hardscapes Association, in "Cleaning, Sealing and Joint Sand Stabilization of Interlocking Concrete Pavement", PAV-TEC-005-22, states that "a high pressure sprayer applies cleaner and water between 1,000 and 4,000 psi (6.9 and 27.6 MPa), and at a rate between 2 and 6 gallons/minute (7.6 and 22.7 liters/minute)", that cleaners for efflorescence go on "with a low pressure pump spray 30 to 100 psi (0.2 to 0.7 MPa)", and that "a nozzle that creates a wide spray enables a large area to be covered efficiently and prevents sand from being washed from the joints", adding that "a low angle of attack from a wide nozzle spray will also reduce the risk of dislodging joint sand" (Concrete Masonry and Hardscapes Association, PAV-TEC-005-22, read 2026-08-31).
Two limits on that figure belong beside it. CMHA publishes it as a trade association standard for interlocking concrete pavement, not as a regulation, and it says nothing about what a poured concrete slab will tolerate. A courtyard washed at a steep angle with a narrow tip loses joint sand, and re-sanding is a line item nobody bid, which is why joint sand replacement is quoted separately above rather than assumed.
Wash water from an Alpharetta apartment community stays on the property, and the rule that makes that necessary is federal rather than municipal. 40 CFR 122.26(b)(2) defines an illicit discharge as any discharge into a municipal separate storm sewer that is not composed entirely of storm water, setting aside a discharge made under an NPDES permit or one resulting from fire fighting (40 CFR 122.26, via the Cornell Legal Information Institute, read 2026-08-31). No apartment community holds an NPDES permit for washing a breezeway, and breezeway or dumpster pad runoff carries sediment, food residue, oil and grease, so it does not qualify as entirely storm water. In Georgia that program is run by the Environmental Protection Division's Watershed Protection Branch, and the inlets in an Alpharetta parking lot feed a municipal system (Georgia EPD, Stormwater, read 2026-08-31).
Containment is therefore part of the scope rather than an extra. Inlets inside the work area are matted or blocked, runoff is steered to a vegetated area where soil does the filtering, and the remainder is vacuum recovered. The Brick Industry Association sets out the same expectation for masonry cleaning: "Dilution of runoff and its release into the stormwater management system should not be expected or allowed unless expressly permitted by the applicable jurisdiction." The longer federal treatment, including how the EPA describes the reach of the NPDES stormwater program, is on the metro Atlanta apartment pressure washing page.
Two full property washes a year is the base cycle at an Alpharetta community, with the compactor pad, the dumpster enclosures and the breezeways on a tighter interval than the buildings.
North Fulton's calendar picks the dates. Tree pollen loads every horizontal surface from late February into April, so a February wash is undone by the middle of March and a late April wash is the one that holds through the leasing peak. Hardwood leaf drop runs into November and stains concrete anywhere wet leaves sit, so the second visit follows the drop rather than leading it.
Rainfall is the second input, and North Fulton runs wetter than the airport number a metro Atlanta page usually quotes. NOAA's twelve 1991-2020 monthly precipitation normals sum to 56.37 inches at station USC00092408, Cumming 2N, immediately north of Alpharetta, and 56.32 inches at station USC00096407, Norcross, against 50.43 inches at station USW00013874, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Monthly Climate Normals 1991-2020, read 2026-09-02). State that carefully: NOAA publishes no 1991-2020 normal for the Alpharetta 4 SSW station, so Cumming 2N and Norcross bracket Alpharetta and neither figure is an Alpharetta measurement, and a normal is a 30 year station average rather than a total for any single year. Six extra inches over the airport is why a shaded north facing walkway here greens up sooner than the calendar suggests, and why a building tight against a wooded buffer earns a tighter interval than a building on the open side of the same property.
For a Georgia planned community that has submitted itself to the Property Owners' Association Act, the board approves a maintenance contract without an owner vote by default. O.C.G.A. section 44-3-231(f) states that "except to the extent otherwise expressly required by this article, by Chapter 2 or 3 of Title 14, by the instrument, by the articles of incorporation, or by the bylaws of the association, the powers inherent in or expressly granted to the association may be exercised by the board of directors, acting through the officers, without any further consent or action on the part of the lot owners", and section 44-3-231(a)(1) grants the association power to "employ, retain, dismiss, and replace agents and employees to exercise and discharge the powers and responsibilities of the association" (O.C.G.A. 44-3-231, 2025 Code of Georgia, read 2026-09-02).
Two qualifications belong with that statute. The Property Owners' Association Act governs planned communities that opted into it and does not govern condominiums, which fall under the Georgia Condominium Act. Both quoted provisions are expressly subordinate to the association's own instrument, so board authority is the default and the declaration controls.
The Foundation for Community Association Research, in its 2025 U.S. National and State Statistical Review, estimates 11,400 community associations in Georgia covering about 889,000 units and about 2,326,000 residents, and estimates that 30 to 40 percent of community associations nationally are self managed (Foundation for Community Association Research, published March 2026, read 2026-09-02). The Foundation describes those numbers as curated estimates rather than a census count. A self managed Alpharetta association has no on site manager to walk a scope, so the site walk matters more there rather than less.
Exterior cleaning is an operating expense, and the distinction matters to a condominium board looking at its reserve study. The Fannie Mae Selling Guide, at B4-2.2-01 Full Review Process effective 2026-08-05, requires a project budget to "provide for the funding of replacement reserves for capital expenditures and deferred maintenance that is at least 10% of the budget", calculated by dividing "the annual budgeted replacement reserve allocation by the association's annual budgeted assessment income", and expects a reserve study to address "all major components and elements of the project's common areas for which repair, maintenance, or replacement is expected" as well as "the condition and remaining useful life of each major component" (Fannie Mae Selling Guide B4-2.2-01, read 2026-09-02).
That is a lender eligibility test applied when Fannie Mae reviews a condominium project before it will buy a loan on a unit inside it. The Selling Guide is not a Georgia statute, no Georgia association is legally obliged to follow it, and the 10 percent test runs against the project budget rather than against any single component. Read against it, a recurring wash is the maintenance that keeps a component's remaining useful life where the study assumed it would be, which is a different budget conversation from replacing that component early.
Georgia publishes an employer threshold a board can check in one sentence. The Georgia State Board of Workers' Compensation states that "every employer, individual, firm, association, or corporation, regularly employing three or more persons, part-time or full time, shall provide workers' compensation insurance coverage", and adds that "exempted officers of corporations or exempted members of limited liability companies shall not reduce the number of employees for this purpose" (Georgia State Board of Workers' Compensation, Employer Information, read 2026-09-02).
A wash costs less per building when the trailer is already on site for something the property had scheduled anyway.
Weekdays 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and Saturday 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. That window is Thrare Contracting's own scheduling policy, modeled on section 26-116 of the Alpharetta Code of Ordinances rather than required by it: 26-116(3) governs "construction and demolition activity", 26-116(2) governs commercial or industrial power tools "used for landscaping and yard maintenance", and neither paragraph names pressure washing. Both bracket the same hours, and a code officer may read exterior cleaning under either, so working inside the window removes the argument. Section 26-114 sets the sound limits: 60 dBA daytime and 55 dBA overnight at a residential receiving property line, and 55 dBA daytime and 45 dBA overnight inside a multifamily dwelling. Those limits govern a daytime machine unless the work is classed under 26-116(2), which lifts them for commercial landscaping and yard maintenance equipment outside the restricted hours; overnight work has to meet them either way.
James Hardie publishes the limit for its own fiber cement products. Technical Bulletin #20 directs that a pressure washer be used with wide fan tips kept a minimum of 6 feet from the wall and at pressures under 1500 psi, and states that low pressure water spray with a soft nonmetal bristle brush is most suitable. Brick veneer is governed by a different and lower number: the Brick Industry Association caps brick at 400 psi measured at the nozzle tip.
The Concrete Masonry and Hardscapes Association, in PAV-TEC-005-22, puts high pressure cleaning of interlocking concrete pavement between 1,000 and 4,000 psi at 2 to 6 gallons per minute, and efflorescence cleaner at 30 to 100 psi by low pressure pump spray. The technique matters more than the number: CMHA calls for a wide spray at a low angle of attack, because that is what stops joint sand being washed out of the joints. CMHA publishes this as a trade association standard for pavers, not as a regulation, and not as guidance for poured concrete.
Twice a year is the base cycle: a late April visit once tree pollen has finished and before the leasing peak, and a second visit in late November once hardwood leaf drop is over. Compactor pads, dumpster enclosures and breezeways come round more often than the buildings do, and a building shaded by a wooded buffer earns a tighter interval than one on the open side of the same property.
Under the Georgia Property Owners' Association Act, board authority is the default and the association's own instrument controls. O.C.G.A. section 44-3-231(f) provides that the powers of the association may be exercised by the board of directors without further consent or action by the lot owners, except where the article, Title 14, the instrument, the articles of incorporation or the bylaws require otherwise. The Property Owners' Association Act governs planned communities that opted into it, and a Georgia condominium is governed by the Georgia Condominium Act instead.
Held and verifiable: DBE and ACDBE certification, MBE certification, small disadvantaged business status, E-Verify enrollment, and SAM registration under UEI Z4WKS4UE8NJ6 with CAGE code 9JAV8. Not held, and not claimed anywhere: HUBZone, 8(a) and SOC 2. The legal entity behind the Thrare Contracting name is Rare Earth Ltd.
Send the building count, the units in each and the cladding by elevation, or just the site plan. Alpharetta and North Fulton are served from the Atlanta, GA 30350 office.