Exterior scope only, at hospitals, medical office buildings and clinics across metro Atlanta: facades and entry canopies, patient walkways and plazas, parking decks and surface lots, ambulance bays, loading docks, and refuse and grease storage areas.
Thrare Contracting cleans the outside of a healthcare property and does no work inside a clinical space. The boundary is stated first on this page because a facility director who has to explain a vendor to an infection preventionist needs the boundary before the capability list.
In scope, and self-performed:
Out of scope, and declined even when a purchase order offers it:
The federal rule behind that refusal is worth quoting rather than paraphrasing. CMS writes the hospital infection control duty at 42 CFR 482.42(a)(3), which requires that the program include "surveillance, prevention, and control of HAIs, including maintaining a clean and sanitary environment to avoid sources and transmission of infection". That duty sits with the infection preventionist the governing body appoints under 42 CFR 482.42(a)(1), not with a cleaning contractor, and a contractor who offers to absorb it is offering something a hospital cannot lawfully hand over.
Non-clinical interior common areas are a separate conversation. Lobby, corridor and restroom janitorial for a medical office building is quoted through grounds maintenance and janitorial on its own scope sheet, and no part of that scope reaches a clinical space either.
A hospital buys exterior cleaning under a federal condition of participation that an office park does not have, so the purchase is a compliance artifact as well as an appearance decision.
The governing sentence is short. CMS states at 42 CFR 482.41 that "the hospital must be constructed, arranged, and maintained to ensure the safety of the patient, and to provide facilities for diagnosis and treatment and for special hospital services appropriate to the needs of the community". Paragraph (a) of the same section adds that "the condition of the physical plant and the overall hospital environment must be developed and maintained in such a manner that the safety and well-being of patients are assured". Neither sentence names pressure washing, and a page that claims otherwise is selling a reading the regulation does not support. What both sentences do is put the physical environment on the survey agenda, which is why a facility director wants a dated record of what was cleaned and when.
One paragraph reaches the exterior directly. 42 CFR 482.41(b)(4) requires that "the hospital must have procedures for the proper routine storage and prompt disposal of trash". A compactor pad with standing leachate, a grease container sitting on stained concrete, and an enclosure whose gates no longer close are the visible end of that requirement, and all three are exterior work.
Accessible routes carry their own maintenance duty. For a privately owned medical office building the operative rule is 28 CFR 36.211(a): "a public accommodation shall maintain in operable working condition those features of facilities and equipment that are required to be readily accessible to and usable by persons with disabilities". Paragraph (b) of the same section travels with it and says the rule "does not prohibit isolated or temporary interruptions in service or access due to maintenance or repairs", which is why an accessible route can be taken out of service for an afternoon to clean and restripe it. The surface itself was built to 302.1 of the ADA Accessibility Standards, which the United States Access Board states as "floor and ground surfaces shall be stable, firm, and slip-resistant". Note what 302.1 does not say: nothing in the standard sets a cleaning frequency, and algae on a walkway is not by itself an accessibility finding.
Six exterior areas account for most of the scope and most of the argument on a healthcare campus, and each one fails in a different way.
Entry canopies collect vehicle exhaust film on the underside and biological growth on the north-facing fascia, and the drop-off apron below carries tire rubber, fluid drips and the residue of every wheelchair transfer made there. Soft washing at low pressure with a rinse cycle is the method on painted steel, aluminum composite and EIFS canopy soffits. The apron below takes a hot rinse with a surface cleaner and a targeted degreaser on the drip line. Entry work is scheduled to finish and dry before the morning arrival peak, because a wet apron under a canopy is a slip exposure for exactly the population least able to absorb one.
Ambulance bays fail on petroleum, not on algae. Diesel drips, hydraulic fluid, tire rubber and brake dust build a dark film that a cold rinse will not lift, so the bay takes a degreaser dwell followed by a hot surface clean and a contained rinse. Bay work runs in halves so at least one bay stays live throughout, and the charge nurse or house supervisor holds the authority to stop the work and clear the bay at any moment, without asking. Crews stage equipment outside the bay footprint, never inside it.
Deck cleaning is the largest single line on most healthcare campuses and the one most likely to be deferred, because closing a deck at a hospital is close to impossible. Thrare Contracting works decks level by level and bay by bay, degreasing drive lanes and stalls, washing stair cores and elevator lobbies on the same pass, and handing each section back before opening the next. A four level occupied residential deck in metro Atlanta was degreased and washed across 4.5 days on site without ever closing, with the deck in service every day of the work. That deck served an apartment community rather than a hospital, and it is cited here for the sequencing method rather than as healthcare past performance. That record is written up in full on the occupied deck case page, and the sequencing method behind it is described on parking decks and structured parking.
Surface lots at medical office buildings fail at the accessible route first, because the access aisle carries the heaviest wheelchair and walker traffic on the property and the paint wears fastest there. Lot scope covers oil spot treatment, curb and wheel stop cleaning, bollard washing, and coordination with striping where the markings have gone. Layout and marking questions are answered on parking lot striping and ADA; general lot cleaning is described on parking lot cleaning.
Refuse areas are where a clean campus is usually lost. A compactor pad drains to a catch basin more often than not, cooking grease from a cafeteria or a retail tenant sits in a container on that same pad, and the enclosure walls hold odor long after the containers are emptied. Enclosure scope covers pad degreasing, wall washing, gate and bollard cleaning, and a rinse plan that keeps the pad's own drainage out of the storm system. Refuse work is the single most common reason a hospital calls an exterior contractor between scheduled visits.
Healthcare facades are rarely one material. A single elevation can carry precast concrete panels, brick veneer, EIFS, metal panel and glass curtain wall, and each one takes a different pressure and a different chemistry. Substrate limits are set by the manufacturer or the trade association that publishes for that material, not by the crew on the day, and the substrate schedule is written into the scope before mobilization. Method detail for commercial elevations is on building washing.
Thrare Contracting sequences a healthcare campus by zone and hands each zone back on a published time, rather than sequencing by building and asking the facility to absorb the disruption.
The sequence runs in the same order every time. First a walk of the campus with the facility engineer to mark air intakes, generator louvers, medical gas manifolds, helipad approach, ED access and any construction barrier already in place. Second a written zone map with a handback time against each zone. Third the work itself, one zone live at a time. Fourth a photographic record for each completed zone, delivered with the invoice so an approver does not need a site visit to sign it.
Air intakes govern more of the plan than anything else on a hospital exterior, and the reason is a design rule rather than a cleaning rule. CDC's Guidelines for Environmental Infection Control in Health-Care Facilities carries a Category IC recommendation for new construction and renovation: "Locate exhaust outlets >25 ft. from air-intake systems" and "Locate outdoor air intakes >6 ft. above ground or >3 ft. above roof level". CDC wrote that for designers, not for washing crews, and no part of the guideline sets a method or a frequency for exterior cleaning. The operational consequence for a contractor is simply arithmetic: an intake placed to that recommendation sits about 6 feet above grade, which is inside the aerosol path of a facade wash or a walkway rinse. The same guideline records that infections due to Cryptococcus neoformans, Histoplasma capsulatum or Coccidioides immitis "can occur in health-care settings if nearby ground is disturbed and a malfunction of the facility's air-intake components allows these pathogens to enter the ventilation system", which is why Thrare Contracting seals off an affected intake where the facility engineer permits it, or moves the work, rather than washing past it.
Exterior work also touches one recommendation CDC addresses squarely to the outside of the building. The guideline's Category IB recommendation reads "Remove bird roosts and nests near air intakes to prevent mites and fungal spores from entering the ventilation system", and bird fouling on a canopy, a ledge or a rooftop screen wall is exterior work by any reading. Nest and roost removal is coordinated with the facility and its own environmental staff rather than performed on sight of it, because the species and the time of year decide what may be disturbed and that decision belongs to the facility.
Two more sequencing rules exist because healthcare campuses break them constantly. Helipad approach and departure paths are cleared of equipment and personnel on a radio call, with no exception and no negotiation. Construction barriers erected under an infection control risk assessment are treated as a wall: crews do not open one, lean equipment on one, or run a hose past one.
| Zone type | Typical window | Handback condition |
|---|---|---|
| Patient entry and canopy | Overnight into early morning | Surface dry, mats reset, signage removed |
| Ambulance bay | One half at a time, any hour | Bay dry and clear on the charge nurse's call |
| Parking deck level | Level by level, daytime | Level dry, stalls open, drains clear |
| Refuse and grease pad | Between hauls, daytime | Pad rinsed, containers reset, gates closed |
| Facade elevation | Daytime, weather permitting | Glass rinsed, walkway below dry and reopened |
A healthcare exterior quote from Thrare Contracting includes the labor, the chemistry, the water handling and the record, and excludes the items a facility can usually supply more cheaply itself.
Included in the quoted number:
Not included, and quoted separately or supplied by the facility:
Prices are quoted per property after a site walk and are not published on this site, because square footage, substrate mix, deck level count, degree of petroleum loading and the handback constraint move the number far more than any list rate would suggest. A campus with two decks and an ED apron and a single-tenant medical office building on a surface lot are not the same purchase, and a published rate would misprice both.
Seven items, and a campus that has all seven ready on the day of the site walk gets a zone map out of that visit rather than out of a second one.
Thrare Contracting supplies the other side of that list without being asked: a written zone map, a safety data sheet for every product used on the property, the substrate schedule showing pressure and chemistry by material, and an E-Verify company identification number and authorization date for a public buyer that requires the affidavit.
Wash water from an exterior cleaning at a City of Atlanta address may not enter the storm sewer, and the ordinance that says so is Atlanta City Code Chapter 74, Article IX.
Section 74-436 is the prohibition, stated plainly: "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". Section 74-428 defines a pollutant to include "petroleum hydrocarbons; automotive fluids; cooking grease; detergents (biodegradable or otherwise); degreasers; cleaning chemicals", which is a description of the runoff from an ambulance bay, a compactor pad and a grease storage area. Section 74-437 lists the exemptions, and neither exterior rinse water nor wash water appears among them. Section 74-429 sets the reach: "the provisions of this article shall apply throughout the corporate limits of the City of Atlanta".
Jurisdiction has to be checked rather than assumed. Fulton County states that its own stormwater program manages "the surface water resources of unincorporated Fulton County" and that "for all other areas of the County, stormwater management is the responsibility of the individual cities". A hospital campus in Sandy Springs, Roswell, Alpharetta or Johns Creek is governed by that city's ordinance, not by a Fulton County document, and quoting the wrong instrument to a facility director is a fast way to lose the room.
What that means on the ground is a containment plan written before the work, not improvised at the drain. Degreasing scope is run with berms, drain covers or inflatable plugs, wash water is recovered by vacuum, solids are screened and bagged, and recovered water is disposed of through a permitted route rather than the nearest grate. Clear-water rinsing of a facade with no chemistry and no petroleum loading is a different case from degreasing a compactor pad, and the containment plan says which case each zone falls under. No penalty figure appears on this page, because penalties depend on the enforcement route and no number circulating in the trade press is traceable to the ordinance itself.
Frequency on a metro Atlanta healthcare campus is set by exposure and by climate, and Atlanta's climate loads exterior surfaces harder than most of the country.
NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information publishes a 1991 to 2020 annual precipitation normal of 50.43 inches for station USW00013874, Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport, with 13.59 inches of that falling across June, July and August and an annual mean temperature normal of 63.6 degrees F. A 30 year normal is an average and not a forecast for any given year, and the second Atlanta station, USW00003888 at Fulton County Airport, records 48.13 inches, so the figure describes a station rather than a metro area. Warm summer rain and shade are the conditions under which biological growth comes back fastest on a north-facing walkway, and that is the reason the cycle is shorter on shaded entries than on open lots.
Thrare Contracting's own scheduling policy, which is a policy and not a code requirement, sets these bands as the starting point for a healthcare campus:
| Area | Starting frequency | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Patient entry, canopy and drop-off | Quarterly | Shade, tree canopy, smoking area proximity |
| Ambulance bay and ED apron | Quarterly | Call volume and diesel loading |
| Refuse, compactor and grease pads | Quarterly | Cafeteria and retail tenant volume |
| Parking deck | Annually | Level count, drainage condition, ramp wear |
| Surface lot and accessible routes | Twice a year | Tree cover and oil loading |
| Facade elevations | Every 2 to 3 years | Orientation, substrate and irrigation overspray |
A campus that budgets by the visit rather than by the year almost always underspends on refuse areas and overspends on facades, because the facade is what an executive sees on arrival and the compactor pad is not. Reversing that order is usually the cheapest improvement available to a healthcare facility budget.
Thrare Contracting, the trade name of Rare Earth Ltd, holds DBE, ACDBE, MBE and SDB certifications, is registered in SAM with CAGE code 9JAV8 and UEI Z4WKS4UE8NJ6, and participates in E-Verify under company identification number 2748681.
Those certifications mean something specific, and a health system with a supplier diversity commitment should know exactly what. 49 CFR 26.5 defines a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise as "a for-profit small business concern (1) That is at least 51 percent owned by one or more individuals who are both socially and economically disadvantaged; and (2) Whose management and daily business operations are controlled by one or more of the socially and economically disadvantaged individuals who own it". The airport concession version at 49 CFR 23.3 is a separate program with its own definition, and an ACDBE certification is not a DBE certification.
One sentence in the same body of regulation cuts against every certified firm including this one, and it belongs on the page rather than in a footnote. 49 CFR 26.31(d) requires a certification directory to carry "a prominently displayed disclaimer (e.g., large type, bold font) that states the information within the directory is not a guarantee of the DBE's capacity and ability to perform work". A certification is an eligibility finding about ownership and control. Capacity is a separate question, and a facility director is right to ask it separately.
Not held, stated plainly so a procurement officer does not have to ask: Thrare Contracting does not hold HUBZone certification, does not hold 8(a) certification, and does not hold SOC 2 certification. The one public sector engagement with a published dollar figure is $198,000 in recycled aggregate supplied to Fulton County Public Works, which is a materials and logistics engagement rather than a cleaning contract and is offered here only as a verifiable public sector reference. Certification documents and registration detail sit on credentials and compliance and on the DBE and MBE contractor page.
North Atlanta coverage. A large share of the healthcare and medical office buildings Thrare Contracting services sit in the north Atlanta corridor: Sandy Springs, Dunwoody, Roswell, Alpharetta, Brookhaven and Johns Creek. One crew base covers that corridor, so scheduling several sites in it does not add mobilizations. Travel bands are listed on the service areas page, and multi-property programs are described on commercial property programs.
No. Thrare Contracting performs exterior cleaning only and declines terminal cleaning of operating rooms, isolation rooms and procedure suites, disinfection of any patient care area, and handling of regulated medical waste. CMS places the hospital infection control duty at 42 CFR 482.42(a)(3), which requires the program to include "surveillance, prevention, and control of HAIs, including maintaining a clean and sanitary environment to avoid sources and transmission of infection", and assigns it to an infection preventionist the governing body appoints. A contractor cannot take that duty over, and a contractor offering to is worth a second look.
Yes, by working the deck level by level and bay by bay and handing each section back before opening the next. A four level occupied residential deck in metro Atlanta was degreased and washed across 4.5 days on site and stayed in service every day of the work, which is the sequencing method rather than a healthcare reference. Stair cores and elevator lobbies are cleaned on the same pass so the deck does not read as half finished, and wash water and solids are recovered rather than sent to the drain untreated.
Atlanta City Code section 74-436 prohibits any person from discharging "into the storm sewer system of the City of Atlanta any pollutants or waters containing any pollutants, other than stormwater", and section 74-428 defines pollutants to include "petroleum hydrocarbons; automotive fluids; cooking grease; detergents (biodegradable or otherwise); degreasers; cleaning chemicals". Neither wash water nor exterior rinse water appears in the section 74-437 exemptions. Degreasing scope is therefore run with drain protection and vacuum recovery, and recovered water leaves the site through a permitted route.
Intakes are marked on the zone map during the pre-work walk with the facility engineer, and work near one is either sealed off with the engineer's permission or moved. CDC's Guidelines for Environmental Infection Control in Health-Care Facilities carries a Category IC design recommendation to "Locate outdoor air intakes >6 ft. above ground or >3 ft. above roof level" and to "Locate exhaust outlets >25 ft. from air-intake systems", and notes that certain fungal infections can occur in health-care settings when nearby ground is disturbed and an air-intake malfunction lets the organisms into the ventilation system. CDC wrote those numbers for designers and sets no cleaning method or frequency anywhere in the guideline. An intake built to 6 feet above grade nonetheless sits in the aerosol path of a facade wash, which is why intake location drives the sequence.
Quarterly for patient entries, ambulance bays and refuse pads, twice a year for surface lots, annually for parking decks, and every two to three years for facade elevations, as a starting point that a site walk then adjusts. Those bands are Thrare Contracting's own scheduling policy rather than a code requirement. NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information publishes a 1991 to 2020 annual precipitation normal of 50.43 inches at Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport with 13.59 inches falling in June through August, and warm summer rain on shaded concrete is what shortens the cycle on north-facing entries.
Thrare Contracting holds DBE, ACDBE, MBE and SDB certifications, is registered in SAM with CAGE code 9JAV8 and UEI Z4WKS4UE8NJ6, and participates in E-Verify under company identification number 2748681. A certification does not prove capacity, and the regulation says so: 49 CFR 26.31(d) requires a certification directory to display a disclaimer "that states the information within the directory is not a guarantee of the DBE's capacity and ability to perform work". Thrare Contracting does not hold HUBZone certification, does not hold 8(a) certification, and does not hold SOC 2 certification.
Exterior scope at hospitals, medical office buildings and clinics across metro Atlanta. A site walk produces the zone map and the handback schedule before any quote.