Recurring exterior cleaning for Marietta and Cobb County apartment communities, condominium associations and townhome rental portfolios, worked one building at a time on an occupied property
Thrare Contracting pressure washes apartment communities in Marietta and across Cobb County for regional management companies, ownership groups, condominium boards and on site managers. Marietta multifamily stock runs from older garden style walk ups along Franklin Gateway and Delk Road through to newer wrap and mid rise product near the Square and Town Center, and one mobilization reaches every building on a property rather than one address at a time.
Rare Earth Ltd trades as Thrare Contracting and keeps one office, at 8735 Dunwoody Pl, Ste R, Atlanta, GA 30350, in continuous operation since January 19, 2020. Marietta is a service area reached from that office rather than a second location. The credential list a Cobb County vendor file asks for reads: DBE certification, ACDBE certification, MBE certification, small disadvantaged business status, E-Verify enrollment, and a SAM registration under UEI Z4WKS4UE8NJ6 with CAGE code 9JAV8. Rare Earth Ltd does not hold HUBZone status, 8(a) status or SOC 2 certification, and does not represent otherwise. Every held item on that list can be checked by a Cobb County owner without a phone call.
The answer decides which storm sewer ordinance governs the wash, and the mailing address does not settle it, because a Marietta postal address reaches well past the city limits into unincorporated Cobb County. Thrare Contracting settles the question at the site walk rather than after the first trigger pull.
Inside the city limits the governing text is the City of Marietta Code of Ordinances, Part 7, Chapter 7-8, Article 7-8-18. Section 7-8-18-020 defines an illicit discharge as "any direct or indirect nonstormwater discharge to the municipal separate storm sewer system, except as exempted in Section 7-8-18-030 of this article", and scopes that system to a facility "owned or maintained by the city". Wash water is named directly: an illegal connection reaches any conveyance allowing "any nonstormwater discharge including sewage, process wastewater, and wash water to enter the storm drain system", and the article's pollutant definition expressly lists "detergents (biodegradable or otherwise); degreasers; cleaning chemicals" (City of Marietta Code of Ordinances, Article 7-8-18, sections 7-8-18-020 and 7-8-18-030, read 2026-09-02).
Outside the city limits a different document applies, and one scoping clause is the reason the two cannot be swapped for each other. The Official Code of Cobb County defines the county separate storm drainage system as conveyances "owned or maintained by unincorporated Cobb County", so the county article does not reach an address inside Marietta and the city article does not reach an address outside it (Official Code of Cobb County, Chapter 50, Article V, section 50-181, on Municode, read 2026-09-02).
Cobb County Water publishes written practice for pressure washing contractors, addressed to unincorporated county addresses rather than to city ones. Cobb County Water divides the requirement by contamination rather than by whether soap was used. Where a surface carries "no visible contaminants or detectable pollutants such as petroleum products, chemicals, or sewage", the county states that "wash water runoff does not have to be collected but must be screened" using "filter fabric catch basin inserts, oil absorbent socks, or other types of screening devices". Where a surface is contaminated, and "whether using soaps/detergents or just plain water", the county states that "pressure washers must use a water collection device that enables the collection of wash water and associated solids", naming "a sump pump, wet vacuum, or similarly effective device" (Cobb County Water Education, Pressure Washers, read 2026-09-02). A compactor slab at a Marietta community sits in the second category, and a shaded north facing walkway ordinarily sits in the first.
Crew method does not change with the jurisdiction. Inlets inside the work zone are matted or blocked before water moves, runoff is steered onto planted ground so the soil does the filtering, and the balance is vacuum recovered, so the water never becomes a discharge into anybody's system. The federal definition behind all of this, at 40 CFR 122.26, is quoted in full on the metro Atlanta apartment pressure washing page, and the Cobb County treatment written for facilities managers sits on the Marietta commercial pressure washing page.
A Marietta scope is written per building and per surface, and the mix of older brick veneer with newer fiber cement inside one Cobb County portfolio is what makes the list read differently from property to property.
Sequencing on an occupied community keeps a single building out of service at any moment, and never takes the pool, the mail kiosk and the leasing path down together.
A Marietta apartment quote names its six inputs, so an office can set two bids side by side and see exactly which line differs: building count, stories, cladding by elevation, walkway and parking square footage, access, and visits per year.
Thrare Contracting publishes no per unit and no per square foot figure on this page. A number produced before anybody has seen the cladding, the water source and the drainage path is arithmetic performed on an unknown.
An apartment pool in Cobb County is a public swimming pool, which surprises boards that read the state chapter and stopped there. The Cobb County Board of Health, in its Rules and Regulations for Swimming Pools effective 1/20/2018, defines a public swimming pool to take in pools and spas "operated by or serving" a list that names "condominiums, mobile home parks, recreational vehicle parks, associations, health clubs, special purpose pools, apartment complexes, subdivisions, country clubs, and recreational water parks" (Cobb County Board of Health, Rules and Regulations for Swimming Pools, Part 3, definition 71, read 2026-09-02).
The scope part is where Cobb County parts company with the state. Part 4(3) exempts only a "private swimming pool and hot tubs or spas serving a single-family dwelling and used only by the residents of that dwelling and their guests", therapeutic pools run by a licensed medical facility or physical therapist, therapeutic chambers drained and refilled after each use, and religious ritual baths. Georgia's own chapter is broader in what it lets go: Rule 511-3-5-.02(3) exempts apartment complex pools, country club pools and resident-only subdivision pools by name, and Rule 511-3-5-.02(4) allows the governing authority of a county or municipality to "elect to make apartment pools within their jurisdiction subject to this Chapter" (Georgia Department of Public Health, Rules and Regulations for Public Swimming Pools, Spas, and Recreational Water Parks, Chapter 511-3-5, read 2026-09-02). Cobb County's document carries no such exemption, and Part 5(1)(a) makes it "unlawful for any person to operate a public pool, spa, or recreational water park without having first obtained a valid operating permit from the health authority", with each pool permitted separately.
Four deck provisions reach a cleaning contractor directly. Part 8(x) requires that "a hose bib and a vacuum breaker shall be provided for washing down the entire deck area", located "not more than one hundred-fifty feet apart", so a compliant Cobb County pool deck already carries the water source a wash needs. Part 8(q) requires deck drainage that removes "pool and spa splash water, deck cleaning water, and rain water without leaving standing water of more than one-eighth inch depth twenty minutes after the cessation of the addition of water to the deck". Part 8(s) states that "there shall be no direct connection between the deck drains and the sanitary or storm sewer system, or the gutter or skimmer recirculation system". Part 8(y) states the housekeeping rule in one line: "The deck area will be kept clean of all trash and debris."
Three qualifications belong beside those quotes. Part 8 is a design and construction part, so nothing in it sets a cleaning frequency and nothing in it says a deck must be pressure washed; the standing water clause describes what the deck slope has to achieve. Part 4(5) also leaves a public pool built before adoption governed by "the 2011 version of these rules and regulations with regard to design and construction requirements", so the Part 8 provisions describe what a current build must achieve rather than what every existing Marietta deck was built to. The barrier around the deck is regulated separately at Part 20(11), which requires an enclosure with its top "at least forty eight inches above grade", a maximum vertical clearance of four inches over a solid surface, openings that will not pass "a four inch diameter sphere", pedestrian access gates that are "self-closing and have a self-latching device", and a clear zone of "not less than thirty-six inches around the exterior of the barrier". A crew that leans a ladder or parks a hose reel against that fence has put equipment inside the clear zone, which is a reason the pool deck gets its own staging plan.
Of the two claddings with a published number, brick veneer carries the lower ceiling by a wide margin, and the Brick Industry Association publishes it as a set of bands rather than as one figure. The association directs plainly: "Do not use water pressures higher than 400 psi (2800 kPa) as measured at the nozzle tip unless permitted by brick manufacturer". The association classes "very low pressure" as "less than 100 psi (700 kPa); 4 to 6 gal per minute (15 to 23 L per minute)", "low pressure" as "100 to 400 psi (700 to 2800 kPa)", "medium pressure" as "400 to 800 psi (2800 to 5600 kPa)" and "high pressure" as "greater than 800 psi (5600 kPa)", then rules the top band out: "High-pressure water cleaning is not appropriate for brick and may damage the brickwork" (Brick Industry Association, Technical Notes on Brick Construction 20, "Cleaning Brickwork", August 2018, read 2026-09-02).
The same document states the runoff expectation in a trade body's own words, which is worth putting in front of a board that assumes containment is a contractor preference: "Some jurisdictions may require containment and treatment of the runoff water before it can leave the site. Dilution of runoff and its release into the stormwater management system should not be expected or allowed unless expressly permitted by the applicable jurisdiction."
Fiber cement is common on newer Cobb County stock and carries a different ceiling entirely. James Hardie, in Technical Bulletin #20, directs that wide fan tips be "kept a minimum of 6 feet from the wall and at pressures under 1500 psi", records that "sand blasting can damage the fiber cement surface and is not recommended" and the same of acid washing, and warns that "damage to siding arising from improper cleaning or maintenance may not be covered by the James Hardie warranty" (James Hardie Building Products, Technical Bulletin #20, November 2018, document USTB 20 version 2, read 2026-09-02). Read the two ceilings together: under 1500 psi at 6 feet on fiber cement, against no more than 400 psi at the nozzle tip on brick. One machine setting cannot be correct for both, and a Marietta building with a brick base course under fiber cement above needs the setting changed partway up the elevation.
Neither figure is a regulation. The Brick Industry Association is a trade body writing about brick and James Hardie is a manufacturer writing about its own products, so neither number transfers to hardboard, painted CMU, EIFS or metal panel. A manager comparing two Marietta bids has one useful question to ask each bidder: what pressure runs at the nozzle tip, stated per cladding type rather than as a single number for the property. Mortar eroded by an overpowered tip is a water path into the wall assembly, and the repair costs a multiple of the wash that caused it. Where the cladding will not tolerate a pressurized rinse at all, the correct method is soft washing, with chemistry doing the work and pressure only rinsing.
A Marietta community can be washed outside daylight hours, and the limit that decides it attaches to the receiving property rather than to the property being cleaned. The City of Marietta publishes sound level limits by receiving property category: 65 dBA and 84 dBC from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. for a commercial, business, residential, public space, institutional or noise sensitive receiving property, 60 dBA and 79 dBC for those same categories from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., and 70 dBA and 89 dBC at all times for an industrial or manufacturing receiving property (City of Marietta, Noise Ordinance, read 2026-09-02).
Marietta states that "sound level readings will be measured at or within the real property line of the receiving property". At an apartment community the parcel across that line is frequently another residential property, so 60 dBA is the overnight number an after hours schedule has to hold, and a gas machine parked in a courtyard between two buildings will not hold it. Two schedules do work in practice: an early start that puts the loud portion after 7 a.m. and finishes the amenity path before the leasing office opens, and a zoned daytime plan on a property large enough that a coned building never blocks the tour route. Thrare Contracting cites the city's published noise ordinance page rather than a numbered code section, because the page itself prints none.
Two full property visits a year is the base cycle at a Marietta community, with the compactor pad, the dumpster enclosures and the main breezeways on a tighter interval than the building elevations.
Rainfall sets that interval, and Cobb County runs wetter than the airport figure most contractors quote. NOAA publishes a 1991 to 2020 annual precipitation normal of 53.48 inches for station US1GACB0016, "MARIETTA 8.3 NE, GA US", and 51.06 inches for station US1GACB0002, "SMYRNA 2.3 NE, GA US" (NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, US Climate Normals 1991-2020, read 2026-09-02). Two qualifications belong with those numbers. The station named MARIETTA 8.3 NE sits 8.3 miles northeast of the city rather than inside it, so neither figure is a measurement of the city. And neither normal is a thirty year average of the station's own observations: the daily precipitation record for US1GACB0016 begins 2009-03-04 and the record for US1GACB0002 begins 2008-04-01, so the accurate description is NOAA's published 1991 to 2020 normal for that station (NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Climatology Network daily station inventory, read 2026-09-02). NCEI separately publishes a 2006 to 2020 fifteen year normal of 53.15 inches for US1GACB0016, and mixing the two periods inside one sentence produces a figure belonging to neither.
The 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 wherever wet leaves sit, so the second visit follows the drop rather than leading it. A building tight against a wooded buffer in east Cobb greens up sooner than a building on the open side of the same property, which is an interval question before it is a chemistry question.
Turnover is the operating line an exterior program reaches. The National Apartment Association records a turnover rate across apartment rentals averaging 46.8 percent, a single move-out cost "conservatively calculated at $1,800", and an annual total above $168,000 at a community of 200 units (National Apartment Association, Apartment Turnover, dated 2025-03-06, read 2026-09-02). Read the 46.8 percent as a result from NAA's 2019 operating income and expenses survey, republished in guidance dated March 2025, and not as this year's rate.
Pace is the half a Cobb County contractor lives inside, and NAA's working day guidelines for turning a unit, quoted in full on the metro Atlanta apartment page, leave no slack for exterior work that runs long. A make ready patio slab still wet when the walk-through starts costs the property a day it had already promised.
Green growth on an exterior wall is not a mold citation under HUD's inspection standard, and a contractor selling a wash as mold remediation has misread the standard. HUD's NSPIRE Mold-Like Substance standard, version 3.0, published 08/11/23, states: "Note that algae are not mold-like substances (algae are grass-green)", and HUD lists the Outside location for that standard as None (HUD, NSPIRE Standard, Mold-Like Substance, read 2026-09-02). Removing algae from a north facing breezeway wall in Marietta is a curb appeal and slip resistance decision, and describing it as anything else oversells the work.
A wash does uncover conditions that HUD scores elsewhere in the same standard set. The NSPIRE Wall - Exterior standard, version 3.0, published 08/11/23, defines its first deficiency as "Exterior wall covering has missing sections of at least 1 square foot per wall" and its second as "Exterior wall has peeling paint of 10 square feet or more" on a wall built after 1978, classing both Moderate with a 30 day correction timeframe (HUD, NSPIRE Standard, Wall - Exterior, read 2026-09-02). Peeling paint on painted brick is exactly what a rinse reveals. HUD's Litter and Trip Hazard thresholds, which a walkway wash tends to surface, are quoted with their determinations and correction timeframes on the metro Atlanta apartment page. Findings of that kind belong on the closeout punch list rather than in a phone call after the crew has left Cobb County.
Stated plainly, NSPIRE governs HUD assisted and HUD insured housing rather than conventional market rate apartments, and a market rate Marietta community carries no NSPIRE score. A market rate asset manager can adopt the same published thresholds as a house standard, with no obligation to.
A wash costs less per building when the trailer is already on site for work the property had scheduled anyway.
The ordinance follows the city limits, not the mailing address. Inside the City of Marietta, the governing text is the City of Marietta Code of Ordinances, Article 7-8-18, which defines an illicit discharge as "any direct or indirect nonstormwater discharge to the municipal separate storm sewer system" and names wash water inside its illegal connection definition. Outside the city limits, the Official Code of Cobb County applies, and section 50-181 scopes the county system to conveyances "owned or maintained by unincorporated Cobb County", so the county article does not reach a city address. Thrare Contracting establishes which one applies at the site walk. The containment method is identical either way: protect the inlets, steer runoff onto planted ground, and vacuum recover the rest.
An apartment pool in Cobb County is a public swimming pool under the Cobb County Board of Health Rules and Regulations for Swimming Pools, effective 1/20/2018. Definition 71 names apartment complexes, condominiums, subdivisions and associations, and Part 4(3) exempts only private single-family pools, therapeutic pools, therapeutic chambers and religious ritual baths. Georgia's state chapter 511-3-5 is different: Rule .02(3) exempts apartment complex pools by name and Rule .02(4) lets a county or municipality elect to bring them back in. Part 5(1)(a) of the Cobb rules requires a valid operating permit from the health authority for each pool. A board outside Cobb County should confirm which document its own county board of health applies.
The Brick Industry Association publishes 400 psi measured at the nozzle tip as the ceiling for brick unless the brick manufacturer permits more, classes 400 to 800 psi as medium pressure, and states that "High-pressure water cleaning is not appropriate for brick and may damage the brickwork" above 800 psi. Cleaning solution goes on lower still, at no more than 50 psi. Fiber cement is a different material with a different number: James Hardie directs wide fan tips kept a minimum of 6 feet from the wall at pressures under 1500 psi for its own products. A Marietta building with brick below and fiber cement above needs the setting changed partway up the elevation.
Overnight work is possible, and the sound limit belongs to the neighboring property rather than to the community being cleaned. The City of Marietta lists 60 dBA and 79 dBC from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. for a commercial, business, residential, public space, institutional or noise sensitive receiving property, 65 dBA and 84 dBC for those categories from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., and 70 dBA at all times for an industrial or manufacturing receiving property, measured "at or within the real property line of the receiving property". Where residential parcels sit across the line, an early morning start is easier to hold than an overnight one.
Two full property visits a year is the base cycle, with compactor pads, dumpster enclosures and main breezeways on a tighter interval than the building elevations. Late April holds best in spring, once tree pollen has finished, and the second visit follows hardwood leaf drop in late November rather than leading it. NOAA publishes a 1991 to 2020 annual precipitation normal of 53.48 inches for station US1GACB0016, "MARIETTA 8.3 NE, GA US", which sits 8.3 miles northeast of the city, so shaded concrete regrows algae between visits and a building against a wooded buffer earns a shorter interval.
Held and open to verification: DBE certification, ACDBE certification, MBE certification, small disadvantaged business status, E-Verify enrollment, and a SAM registration under UEI Z4WKS4UE8NJ6 with CAGE code 9JAV8. Not held, and claimed nowhere on this site: HUBZone status, 8(a) status and SOC 2 certification. The legal entity behind the Thrare Contracting name is Rare Earth Ltd, whose office sits at 8735 Dunwoody Pl, Ste R, Atlanta, GA 30350.
Send the building count, the units in each building, and the cladding by elevation, or send the site plan and say whether the address is inside the Marietta city limits. Marietta and Cobb County are served from the Atlanta, GA 30350 office.