Thrare Contracting writes the scope down before a crew is scheduled. The sections below explain what actually drives an exterior cleaning number, so you can read our estimate and anyone else's with the same eye.
To start now, call (678) 748-3578 or send your address and surfaces through the form at the bottom of this page. Thrare Contracting answers during business hours and returns missed calls the same business day.
A Thrare Contracting estimate is a written document, delivered by email as a PDF, that names every surface by measurement and method rather than describing a job in adjectives. Thrare Contracting charges nothing for the assessment or for the site visit that supports it, and no deposit is required to receive one.
Each estimate carries the following, and a buyer should treat any one of them as missing rather than assumed if a competing quote leaves it out:
The estimate is the document the work is performed against. When the crew arrives, the surfaces on the invoice are the surfaces on the estimate, and a change to the scope is reissued in writing before the work happens rather than added to a final bill.
An exterior cleaning quote is built on measured quantity, surface by surface, in the unit that matches how the surface is cleaned. Flat work such as a driveway, a sidewalk, a dumpster pad or a parking deck bay is measured in square feet. Vertical work such as a building elevation is measured in wall area, which is not the same number as the building footprint. Gutters, curbs and retaining walls are measured in linear feet. Breezeways, stairwells, entry doors and awnings are counted, because the cost driver on those is setup and teardown rather than area.
Area alone does not finish the calculation, and a contractor who quotes from area alone is guessing at the rest. Four other inputs move a number as much as square footage does.
A concrete pad under a wooded buffer with four seasons of tannin staining is not the same job as the same pad cleaned six months ago. Oil, tire scuff, rust bleed, gum and red clay each need a different pretreatment and a different dwell time, and each adds passes. Thrare Contracting prices soil load by inspecting the surface, not by asking the customer to grade it.
Reach governs cost. Work a technician can perform from the ground with a wand and a surface cleaner is one number. Work that needs a ladder, a telescoping lance, scaffolding or a boom lift is a different number, and the lift itself is quoted as a separate line so the buyer can see it. Gated properties, occupied parking and restricted delivery windows are access constraints too, because a crew that cannot start until a lot clears is a crew being paid to wait.
Exterior cleaning consumes water at a rate most buyers underestimate. According to the Concrete Masonry and Hardscapes Association, in technical bulletin PAV-TEC-005-22, "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)." A single machine running six hours at the upper end of that range moves a volume no residential hose bib delivers on demand, so a job on a weak spigot needs a buffer tank, and a job with no water source at all needs water hauled in. Thrare Contracting confirms the water source before quoting rather than after arriving.
A surface on a recurring program is cleaned before the soil bonds, so each visit is shorter than the first restorative clean. Recurring commercial accounts are therefore quoted as a program with a per visit scope and an annual scope, not as a one time number repeated. The first visit on a neglected property is a restoration visit and is scoped separately from the maintenance cycle that follows it.
The substrate sets a hard ceiling on pressure, and that ceiling decides the method, the chemistry, the time on site and therefore the price. Manufacturers and trade bodies publish those ceilings, and every one of them is stated for one material only. The table below quotes each figure as its own publisher states it.
| Surface | Published limit | Published by |
|---|---|---|
| Brick | "Do not use water pressures higher than 400 psi (2800 kPa) as measured at the nozzle tip unless permitted by brick manufacturer". Anything above 800 psi is classed as high pressure and "not appropriate for brick". | Brick Industry Association, Technical Notes on Brick Construction 20, August 2018 |
| Fiber cement 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 |
| EIFS and acrylic stucco | "keep the pressure at approximately 200-500 psi (1.4-3.4 MPa), and keep the nozzle several feet from the surface. Do not exceed 500 psi". | Sto Corp., StoTherm EIFS Reference Guide, Repair and Maintenance |
| EIFS and stucco lamina | "Never use water pressure more than 500 psi or allow pressure nozzles to come within 2 feet of the wall." Fan tips of "30-45 deg. or greater". | Sika Corporation, Senergy Technical Bulletin, revised February 2024 |
| Concrete pavers | Cleaner and water applied "between 1,000 and 4,000 psi", at "between 2 and 6 gallons/minute", with a wide nozzle to keep joint sand in place. | Concrete Masonry and Hardscapes Association, PAV-TEC-005-22 |
Read the spread across those rows and the pricing consequence becomes obvious. A brick elevation and a paver drive sit an order of magnitude apart in permitted pressure, so the brick wall is cleaned by chemistry and dwell time while the paver drive is cleaned by mechanical energy. Chemistry costs product and waiting; mechanical energy costs water and passes. A quote that applies one production rate to a whole property has not looked at what the property is made of.
Two further instructions from the same documents change how a first visit is scheduled. The Brick Industry Association directs a contractor to "Perform trial cleaning on a 20 sq ft (2 m2) sample area and allow wall to dry before evaluating results", and to "Use a 25 to 50 deg. fan-shaped stainless steel nozzle tip, and maintain a distance of 12 in. (305 mm) minimum between the nozzle tip and the brick surface." A trial patch on masonry is therefore a step in the work, not a courtesy, and Thrare Contracting builds the drying interval into the schedule for masonry buildings. The Senergy Technical Bulletin states the underlying principle for coated substrates in one line: "The chemicals provide the cleaning, not the water pressure."
Every figure above belongs to the material named beside it. A brick ceiling of 400 psi is not a limit for poured concrete, and a fiber cement ceiling of 1500 psi must never be carried onto brick or onto EIFS. Sto Corp. and Sika publish limits for their own products, so a building clad in a third manufacturer's system is cleaned to that manufacturer's bulletin. When Thrare Contracting cannot identify a cladding from photographs, the site visit exists to identify it.
Wash water stays on the property, and containing it is a line of work that shows up in the scope and in the hours. Under 40 CFR 122.26(b)(2) an illicit discharge is "any discharge to a municipal separate storm sewer that is not composed entirely of storm water except discharges pursuant to a NPDES permit (other than the NPDES permit for discharges from the municipal separate storm sewer) and discharges resulting from fire fighting activities." No shopping center, apartment community or homeowner holds an NPDES permit for rinsing a walkway, so the compliance path is containment and the permit question never opens.
Inside the Atlanta city limits the same duty is written locally. Atlanta City Code section 74-436 states that "No person shall throw, drain, or otherwise discharge, cause, or allow others under its control to throw, drain, or otherwise discharge into the storm sewer system of the City of Atlanta any pollutants or waters containing any pollutants, other than stormwater." Detergents, degreasers, petroleum hydrocarbons and yard waste are all named as pollutants in the definitions at section 74-428, which reaches ordinary exterior cleaning runoff and ordinary gutter debris alike.
Trade guidance says the same thing without waiting for a regulator. The Brick Industry Association instructs a contractor to "Control and/or treat runoff in accordance with the requirements of the jurisdiction", and warns that "Dilution of runoff and its release into the stormwater management system should not be expected or allowed unless expressly permitted by the applicable jurisdiction."
Containment work is estimated explicitly, because containment is the part a low quote quietly drops. A Thrare Contracting scope names which inlets are matted, whether runoff is directed to a vegetated area where soil does the filtering, and whether the site needs vacuum recovery and offsite disposal. A parking deck, a fuel island, a dumpster corral and a grease-loaded kitchen exterior each raise that requirement, and each therefore raises the hours. A buyer comparing two quotes should ask both contractors this question first, because the cheaper number is frequently the one with no containment plan behind it.
The boundary is written into every estimate rather than left to be discovered on the day. Inside the number, unless the estimate says otherwise:
Outside the number, and quoted separately when a property needs them:
Residential work at Thrare Contracting is pressure washing, and gutter cleaning is available to residential customers only as an add-on to a soft wash package rather than as a standalone visit. Commercial and multifamily scopes are broader and are built per property. Nothing on this page quotes a figure for any of it: every number Thrare Contracting issues is written for a specific address after the surfaces have been measured.
Six items let an estimate be written the same day it is requested, and a missing one is the usual reason a quote takes longer than a buyer expects.
None of the six is mandatory to start a conversation. Thrare Contracting gathers what is missing during the call or on site, and residential estimates for driveways, house washing and roof cleaning are frequently written from an address, a parcel record and photographs without a visit at all.
Five questions separate a contractor who has thought about your building from one quoting from a template, and every one of them has a checkable answer.
A contractor who answers a cladding question with a number and a document is telling you the substrate was identified. A contractor who answers with "we adjust as needed" is telling you it was not. The published ceilings in the table above are the reference: 400 psi at the nozzle tip on brick, under 1500 psi on James Hardie fiber cement, 500 psi on EIFS.
Wash water handling is the compliance question on every exterior job and the first line item a bargain quote removes. Ask for the containment method in writing, and ask whether the property sits inside a municipality with its own illicit discharge ordinance, because an Atlanta address answers to Atlanta City Code Chapter 74 rather than to a county program.
A certificate of insurance is evidence, not a contract, and Georgia says so in the rule that governs the form. According to the Rules of the Commissioner of Insurance published in the Georgia Administrative Code, subject 120-2-103, a certificate must carry the statement "This certificate of insurance is issued as a matter of information only and confers no rights upon the certificate holder. This certificate does not amend, extend or alter the coverage, terms exclusions and conditions afforded by the policies referenced herein." The practical consequence for a property owner is direct: a certificate proves a policy existed on the date it was issued and nothing more. If your contract requires you to be named as an additional insured, that has to be arranged on the policy itself and requested in writing. Rare Earth Ltd, operating as Thrare Contracting, carries general liability insurance and issues a certificate to a named holder on request.
According to the Internal Revenue Service, the purpose of Form W-9 is to "provide your correct Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) to the person who is required to file an information return with the IRS". A payer who does not hold a correct taxpayer identification number for a vendor is exposed to backup withholding: the Internal Revenue Service states that "There are situations when the payer is required to withhold at the current rate of 24 percent", including where a payee "failed to provide a correct taxpayer identification number (TIN) to the payer for reporting on the required information return." Collecting a W-9 at vendor setup rather than at year end is what keeps that from becoming a problem in January. Thrare Contracting issues a signed W-9 on request.
An estimate with no exclusions section is not a smaller scope, it is an undefined one. Ask which surfaces are not included, whether lift rental is inside the number, whether specialty stain removal is inside the number, and what happens when a crew finds damage under the soil. Answers to those four questions explain most of the gap between two quotes on the same property.
A written estimate is issued within 24 hours of the assessment, whether the assessment happened remotely or on site, and site visits run 15 to 30 minutes on a single building. Thrare Contracting quotes stand for 30 days from the date of issue. A scope change, such as adding a building or removing a surface, is revised and reissued the same business day in most cases.
Once an estimate is approved, scheduling runs six days a week, and commercial work is scheduled before opening or after closing where a tenant schedule requires it. Thrare Contracting confirms the date by phone or email and sends a reminder 24 hours ahead. Weather moves exterior work: active rain, or temperatures below 40 degrees Fahrenheit where a chemical treatment is part of the scope, triggers a call to reschedule rather than a visit that produces a substandard result. No deposit is required to hold a residential date.
Rare Earth Ltd, operating as Thrare Contracting, holds DBE and ACDBE certification, holds MBE certification, qualifies as a small disadvantaged business, uses E-Verify, and is registered in SAM under UEI Z4WKS4UE8NJ6 and CAGE 9JAV8. Rare Earth Ltd does not hold HUBZone, 8(a) or SOC 2 status and does not represent otherwise. Each of those is verifiable by the buyer in the issuing registry rather than on our word.
Agency and prime contractor buyers ask because participation is measured. The Small Business Administration reported in its FY25 scorecard, published June 25, 2026, that the federal government met "the statutory federal contracting goal of 23%" by "awarding nearly 28% of all prime federal contracts to small businesses". The scorecard figure covers government wide prime contracting and is not a promise about any single firm, but it explains why a certified vendor's paperwork gets asked for at onboarding rather than at award.
Thrare Contracting operates from 8735 Dunwoody Pl, Ste R, Atlanta, GA 30350 and serves metro Atlanta including Decatur, Roswell, Alpharetta, Marietta and Stone Mountain. Our published service area list sets out coverage, and no fuel surcharge is added inside it.
A Thrare Contracting estimate costs nothing, and the site visit that supports it costs nothing. Thrare Contracting charges no assessment fee, no trip fee and no deposit to issue a written quote, and a single building assessment runs 15 to 30 minutes.
Exterior cleaning has no honest single number, because the same 1,000 square feet of surface prices differently by substrate, soil load, access, water supply and frequency. A published starting figure would be a number the buyer cannot use, so Thrare Contracting measures the property and issues a written quote for that address instead.
Pressure is set by the cladding, using the limit its manufacturer or trade body publishes. The Brick Industry Association states "Do not use water pressures higher than 400 psi (2800 kPa) as measured at the nozzle tip unless permitted by brick manufacturer". James Hardie Technical Bulletin 20 puts fiber cement at wide fan tips "kept a minimum of 6 feet from the wall and at pressures under 1500 psi". Sto Corp. and Sika both cap EIFS and acrylic stucco at 500 psi.
Wash water stays on the property. Under 40 CFR 122.26(b)(2) an illicit discharge is any discharge to a municipal separate storm sewer not composed entirely of storm water absent an NPDES permit, and Atlanta City Code section 74-436 prohibits discharging pollutants into the city storm sewer system. Thrare Contracting mats the inlets, directs runoff to a vegetated area where soil does the filtering, and vacuum recovers the rest where a site cannot accept it.
Rare Earth Ltd, operating as Thrare Contracting, issues a certificate of insurance to a named certificate holder and a signed W-9 on request. Georgia's Rules of the Commissioner of Insurance require a certificate to state that it "is issued as a matter of information only and confers no rights upon the certificate holder", so a certificate evidences a policy rather than altering one, and an additional insured requirement has to be arranged on the policy and asked for in writing.
Residential gutter cleaning is available as an add-on to a soft wash package rather than as a standalone residential visit. Commercial and multifamily properties are scoped per site, where gutter and downspout work is quoted alongside building washing and hard surface cleaning.
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