Exterior cleaning quoted against City of Marietta Article 7-8-18 inside the corporate area, and against the Official Code of Cobb County outside it, because the two instruments scope themselves so that neither reaches the other's ground
Thrare Contracting cleans exterior surfaces for building owners, HOA and condominium boards, apartment asset managers, facility directors, restaurant operators and general contractors at addresses carrying a Marietta postal address: the brick and painted storefronts around Marietta Square, the office and flex inventory along Powers Ferry Road and Delk Road, retail centers on Roswell Road and Dallas Highway, garden and mid rise apartment communities across East Cobb and South Cobb, and the concrete flatwork, dumpster pads, entry canopies and elevations attached to all of them. Marietta is a service area and not a location. Rare Earth Ltd, doing business as Thrare Contracting, works from the Atlanta address printed at the foot of this page, and Rare Earth Ltd has operated since January 19, 2020.
This page leads with jurisdiction rather than with equipment because jurisdiction is the part of a Marietta wash that a buyer cannot check from a photograph. A surface cleaner and a downstream injector are commodities. Knowing whether the parcel sits inside the corporate area of the City of Marietta or in unincorporated Cobb County decides which ordinance defines the water coming off the wall, which government can enter the property to sample it, and which enforcement sequence follows a complaint. Two contractors can wash the same building the same way and be answerable to two different codes.
A Marietta mailing address does not settle the question because neither of the two governing instruments defines its reach by mailing address. Both define reach by ownership of the drainage system and by corporate boundary. The City of Marietta Code of Ordinances, Article 7-8-18, states its own applicability at Section 7-8-18-010(B) in a single line: "The provisions of this article shall apply throughout the corporate area of the City of Marietta." The Official Code of Cobb County, Section 50-181, defines the county separate storm drainage system as a conveyance or system of conveyances "Owned or maintained by unincorporated Cobb County". Those two definitions were written not to overlap, and the parcel falls under exactly one of them.
Marietta is one of six incorporated cities in Cobb County, alongside Acworth, Austell, Kennesaw, Powder Springs and Smyrna. Everything outside all six is unincorporated Cobb County. Thrare Contracting confirms the parcel against the city limits before a Marietta scope is written, because the wrong instrument on a proposal is not a cosmetic error: the notice, the appeal window, the enforcement path and the penalty shape all differ between the two.
Inside the corporate area the governing instrument is City of Marietta Code of Ordinances, Part 7, Chapter 7-8, Article 7-8-18, Illicit Discharge and Illegal Connection, adopted by Ordinance No. 6636 on March 10, 2004. Section 7-8-18-030(A) states the prohibition directly: "No person shall throw, drain, or otherwise discharge, cause, or allow others under its control to throw, drain, or otherwise discharge into the municipal separate storm sewer system any pollutants or waters containing any pollutants, other than stormwater." 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."
Two definitions in Section 7-8-18-020 decide how a wash crew is read under this article. The definition of pollutant expressly includes "detergents (biodegradable or otherwise); degreasers; cleaning chemicals" and "cooking grease", so the label on the container changes nothing about the status of the water. The definition of illegal connection expressly includes any conveyance that allows "any nonstormwater discharge including sewage, process wastewater, and wash water to enter the storm drain system". Wash water is named in the ordinance itself rather than inferred from it.
The exemptions the public works director may allow under Section 7-8-18-030(A)(1) are water line flushing by a government agency, other potable water sources, landscape irrigation or lawn watering, diverted stream flows, rising ground water, ground water infiltration to storm drains, uncontaminated pumped ground water, foundation or footing drains, crawl space pumps, air conditioning condensation, springs, natural riparian habitat or wetland flows, and any other water source not containing pollutants, plus discharges from firefighting under subsection (A)(2). Commercial wash water appears nowhere on that list. Section 7-8-18-010(E) names the enforcing officer: "The public works director shall administer, implement, and enforce the provisions of this article." Section 7-8-18-010(C) adds that where this article and another law differ, "whichever provision is more restrictive or imposes higher protective standards for human health or the environment shall control", so a stricter state or federal requirement is not displaced by the city code.
Outside the six cities the governing instrument is the Official Code of Cobb County, Georgia, Part I, Chapter 50, Article V, Stormwater Quality, Illicit Discharge and Illegal Connections. Section 50-191(a) provides that "It is unlawful for any person to throw, drain, run, or otherwise discharge to any component of the county separate storm drainage system or to cause, permit or suffer to be thrown, drained, run or allow to seep or otherwise discharge into such system any matter of any nature excepting only such stormwater or surface water as authorized in this article." Section 50-191(b) lists five exempt categories covering government water line flushing, diverted stream flows, unpolluted groundwater, a group of building and landscape sources including street wash water, firefighting flows, and other unpolluted water. Commercial pressure washing wash water is not among them.
Cobb County Water publishes practice guidance for this trade specifically, which is unusual and worth quoting rather than paraphrasing. Where the surface carries no visible contaminants and no soap is used, the county page states that "wash water runoff does not have to be collected but must be screened", and that "Pressure washers must use filter fabric catch basin inserts, oil absorbent socks, or other types of screening devices on the ground and/or in the storm drain to trap the particles in the wash water runoff." Where soaps or detergents are used, or the surface carries detectable pollutants such as petroleum products, sewage, hazardous substances or chemicals, the page requires collection: "A sump pump, wet vacuum, or similarly effective device must be used to collect the wash water runoff and loose materials." Disposal is named too, and it is the sanitary sewer or a proper facility, never an inlet.
Cobb County Water states the consequence in its own words rather than in a dollar amount: pressure washers found in violation "can be heavily penalized with fines and prohibited from doing business in Cobb County." Losing the right to work in the county is a heavier sanction than most fines, and it is the sentence a Cobb property manager should read before hiring anyone. Questions on that guidance go to Cobb Water Communications and Education at 770-528-1482 or water_RSVP@cobbcounty.gov.
Cobb County Water's pressure washer guidance is county guidance written for the county's own system. Thrare Contracting applies the same containment method on both sides of the line because the method is sound, and states plainly which authority stands behind it on each parcel. A Marietta city address gets Article 7-8-18. An unincorporated Cobb address gets Chapter 50, Article V.
A Marietta Power and Water account does not prove the property is inside the city limits, and treating a utility bill as a jurisdiction test is the most common way a scope gets written against the wrong code. The City of Marietta states that Marietta Power was "created by the city of Marietta in 1906" "to provide low-cost electric power to the citizens of Marietta and Cobb County", and that Marietta Power serves "more than 45,000 electric customers". The utility's own customer page adds that "most of our service area includes electric and water service, some locations are only served electric and some are only served water." A municipal utility whose founding purpose names the county, and whose service mix varies parcel by parcel, cannot function as a boundary.
The reverse test fails as well. Cobb County Water System states that it "purchases drinking water from the Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority and distributes it to over 197,000 homes and businesses in unincorporated Cobb County and in the cities of Acworth, Kennesaw, Powder Springs, and Mableton." Marietta is not on that retail list, so the absence of a Cobb County water bill says only that the city utility serves the meter. The boundary question is answered by the parcel record and the city limits map, not by a statement from any utility.
Collected wash water from a Marietta property goes to the sanitary sewer or to an appropriate disposal facility, and two separate organizations stand behind that one bucket of water. Approval of the connection belongs to the city utility. Treatment of what goes down it belongs to the county. Article 7-8-18 says the first half outright at Section 7-8-18-030(B)(3): improper connections "must be disconnected and redirected, if necessary, to an approved onsite wastewater management system or the sanitary sewer system upon approval of Marietta Board of Lights and Water Department." A crew that opens a cleanout on a Marietta property without that approval has not solved a discharge problem, it has moved one.
Cobb County Water System says the second half. The county states that it "operates and maintains approximately 2600 miles of sanitary sewer lines and 31 pump stations" and runs "four water reclamation facilities that have a combined capacity to treat up to 122 million gallons of wastewater a day". On the question of who treats Marietta's flow, the county is explicit: "In addition to providing wastewater treatment for our retail customers in unincorporated Cobb County and the cities of Acworth, Kennesaw, Powder Springs, and Mableton, the Cobb County Water System, through regional relationships, treats wastewater from the cities of Marietta, Smyrna, Austell, and portions of the city of Atlanta and Bartow, Cherokee, Douglas, and Fulton counties."
So a Marietta wash that ends correctly touches a city utility for the connection and a county utility for the treatment, while the discharge rule that governs the surface belongs to the city. Three organizations, one job. The City of Marietta puts the operating principle in one sentence on its own stormwater page, under the Keep it Clean program: "the only thing that needs to go into a storm drain is stormwater." The same page states that the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program in Marietta "is designed to protect the waters that drain to the Chattahoochee River and Lake Allatoona."
The City of Marietta runs a written sequence at Section 7-8-18-070, and the sequence matters more to a property owner than the penalty at the end of it. Section 7-8-18-070(B) provides that the Public Works Department "may order compliance by written notice of violation", and the notice must contain the name and address of the alleged violator, a description of the property, a statement of the nature of the violation, a description of the remedial measures with a time schedule, a statement that further enforcement may follow, and a statement of the appeal right. The notice may require monitoring and reporting, elimination of the illicit discharge or illegal connection, a cease and desist, abatement and restoration, payment of administrative and abatement costs, and implementation of pollution prevention practices.
Section 7-8-18-070(C) sets the appeal clock, and the clock is short. The notice of appeal "must be received within ten calendar days from the date of the notice of violation." All appeals "shall be heard by the City Council", the hearing falls "within 60 days after receipt of notice of appeal" or a mutually agreed date, and the Council "shall then make its findings within 30 days of the appeal hearing." A dissatisfied appellant "can appeal said decision to the Superior Court of Cobb County within 30 days of the date of the City Council's decision." Ten calendar days is the number a property manager needs in a drawer before anything happens, because a missed appeal window closes an option that no later argument reopens.
Section 7-8-18-070(E) handles money before it handles fines. Within 15 days after abatement the owner is notified of the cost of abatement including administrative costs, a written protest may be filed within 15 days of that notice, and if the amount is unpaid after 30 days "the charges shall become a special assessment against the property and shall constitute a lien on the property for the amount of the assessment." Section 7-8-18-070(G) declares a violating condition a nuisance abatable by injunctive relief, and Section 7-8-18-070(H) provides that the city "may recover attorney's fees, court costs, and other expenses associated with enforcement of this article, including sampling and monitoring expenses."
Section 7-8-18-070(F) is the only Marietta penalty figure, and it applies where the violator fails to take the remedial measures within ten days, or such greater period as the city deems appropriate, with 24 hours notice sufficient where the violation is an immediate danger to public safety, or for intentional and flagrant violations. Under Section 7-8-18-070(F) the public works director or designee may issue a citation, and "Upon conviction, such person shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $1,000.00 or imprisonment for 60 days or both, and in addition, shall pay all costs and expenses involved in the case." The same subsection adds that "Each act of violation and each day upon which any violation shall occur shall constitute a separate offense." That figure belongs to the City of Marietta and to no other jurisdiction, and Thrare Contracting publishes no penalty number from a neighboring city or county on this page.
Cobb County publishes no penalty amount for pressure washing, and none was located on 2026-09-04. Cobb County Water's pressure washer guidance states that violators "can be heavily penalized with fines and prohibited from doing business in Cobb County" without naming a figure, and the code sections read for this page, Official Code of Cobb County Sections 50-181 and 50-191, define the system and state the prohibition without stating an amount. Where a page cannot read a jurisdiction's own number from that jurisdiction's own document, the correct answer is to say so rather than to borrow a number from somewhere else. Penalty figures do not travel: an amount published by Dunwoody, Brookhaven, DeKalb County or Gwinnett County describes those instruments and says nothing about Cobb County or the City of Marietta.
Section 7-8-18-060 imposes a 24 hour reporting duty on the person responsible for the facility or operation, and the duty attaches to a suspected release, not only to a confirmed one. The section requires that person to "take all necessary steps to ensure the discovery, containment, and cleanup of such release so as to minimize the effects of the discharge", and then to "notify the authorized enforcement agency in person or by phone or facsimile no later than 24 hours of the nature, quantity and time of occurrence of the discharge." A phone or in person notice must be "confirmed by written notice addressed and mailed to the Public Works Department within three business days".
Two further duties in the same section reach a commercial site directly. A commercial or industrial establishment "shall also retain an on-site written record of the discharge and the actions taken to prevent its recurrence", and those records "shall be retained for at least three years." Sampling is standardized as well: measurements, tests and analyses required of any discharger "shall be in accordance with 40 CFR Part 136, unless another method is approved by the director." Section 7-8-18-060 closes by making the omission itself actionable: "Failure to provide notification of a release as provided above is a violation of this article."
Section 7-8-18-050 gives the public works director or a designee, "bearing proper credentials and identification", permission to enter "all properties for regular inspections, periodic investigations, observation, measurement, enforcement, sampling and testing, in accordance with the provisions of this article", with notice to the owner or on site representative except in an emergency. A property with security measures must arrange clearance, and the owner or operator must allow ready access to all parts of the premises for inspection, sampling, photography, videotaping and examination of NPDES records.
Three provisions in Section 7-8-18-050 attach cost or liability to the owner rather than to the city. The city may require the owner or operator to install monitoring equipment, which "shall be maintained at all times in a safe and proper operating condition by the owner or operator at his/her own expense". Any obstruction to access "shall be promptly removed by the owner or operator", and "The costs of clearing such access shall be borne by the owner or operator." Subsection (A)(5) is one sentence long and easy to miss: "Unreasonable delays in allowing the city access to a facility are a violation of this article." Where access is refused and the city can demonstrate probable cause, Section 7-8-18-050 authorizes the city to seek a search warrant from a court of competent jurisdiction. Section 7-8-18-050(B) puts a standing duty on the owner between inspections: "Private separate storm sewer systems shall be operated and maintained by the property owner so as to prevent to the maximum extent practicable pollutant discharges to the city's municipal separate storm sewer system."
A Marietta scope is written by surface and by drainage zone rather than as a service list, because the containment plan changes with the surface and with where the water wants to go. The named sub-scopes are these.
The sequence is fixed and it starts before any equipment leaves the shop.
Naming the boundary in writing is the single most useful thing a proposal does, because the argument on a wash job is almost never about the cleaning.
Inside the quoted scope: mobilization to the Marietta parcel; the jurisdiction check and the drainage walk; inlet protection and containment materials; water drawn from an available on site hose bib; surface cleaning of the named flatwork; low pressure chemical application, dwell and rinse on named elevations; plant pre wetting and post rinse; zone by zone before and after photographs; the closing punch list; and a certificate of general liability insurance issued at vendor setup naming the additional insureds the property requires.
Billed separately, and named in the proposal rather than discovered later: water delivered by tank where the property has no usable source; wet vacuum recovery and sanitary sewer or disposal facility handling where the surface carries detectable pollutants; hot water or degreaser treatment of dumpster pads, grease lines and drive through lanes; rust, battery acid, paint and adhesive removal; sealing, striping or coating after cleaning; traffic control, lane closure or deck closure on structured parking; lift or boom rental for elevations beyond safe pole reach; and any work performed outside the ordinary daytime window at the property's request.
Thrare Contracting publishes no prices on this page. A Marietta number depends on measured square footage by surface, the contamination class of each zone, the water source, the containment method the drainage plan requires, and the access window, and a figure quoted before those are known is a guess dressed as a bid.
Two full cleanings a year is the base cycle for a Marietta property, with dumpster pads, grease lines and high footfall entries on a shorter interval. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publishes a 1991 to 2020 annual precipitation normal of 53.48 inches for the station named MARIETTA 8.3 NE, GA US, and NCEI publishes a separate 2006 to 2020 fifteen year normal of 53.15 inches for the same station. Those are two different periods and they should never be combined into one sentence.
One caveat belongs with that figure, and most pages quoting it omit the caveat. Station US1GACB0016 is a CoCoRaHS volunteer gauge whose precipitation record begins on 2009-03-04, so the published 1991 to 2020 normal is not a thirty year average of the station's own observations. The honest phrasing is NOAA's published 1991 to 2020 normal for the station, and the station sits 8.3 miles northeast of Marietta rather than in the city. What the number supports is a maintenance interval, not a claim about a particular building.
The City of Marietta sets sound level limits by receiving property rather than by the property being worked, which is the whole operational point for a wash crew. The city publishes limits of 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, and 60 dBA and 79 dBC from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. for the same categories. An industrial or manufacturing receiving property carries 70 dBA and 89 dBC at all times. The city states that "Sound level readings will be measured at or within the real property line of the receiving property." A retail strip backing onto houses is therefore a harder overnight site than a warehouse backing onto another warehouse, and the scope says which one the property is before an after hours window is agreed.
Thrare Contracting works Marietta Square and the Church Street and Whitlock Avenue corridors, the Powers Ferry Road and Delk Road office and flex corridors, the Roswell Road and Johnson Ferry Road retail spine through East Cobb, the Dallas Highway corridor through West Cobb, and the South Cobb approaches toward Smyrna and the Cumberland district. Neighboring Cobb County pages cover Smyrna, Kennesaw and Acworth, each of which is a separate incorporated city with its own instrument to confirm.
Scopes that share a mobilization on a Marietta parcel include commercial exterior cleaning, apartment and multifamily exterior cleaning, restaurant and kitchen exterior cleaning, soft washing, deck cleaning and parking lot striping. Metro coverage sits on the Atlanta pressure washing page.
Thrare Contracting is based in Atlanta and serves Marietta as a service area. Rare Earth Ltd, doing business as Thrare Contracting, works across Marietta, East Cobb, West Cobb and the neighboring Cobb County cities, and the company address is 8735 Dunwoody Pl, Ste R, Atlanta, GA 30350.
The Cobb County ordinance does not govern a property inside the Marietta city limits. Official Code of Cobb County Section 50-181 scopes the county separate storm drainage system to conveyances "Owned or maintained by unincorporated Cobb County", while City of Marietta Code Section 7-8-18-010(B) states that "The provisions of this article shall apply throughout the corporate area of the City of Marietta." A parcel inside the city falls under Article 7-8-18 and a parcel outside all six Cobb cities falls under Chapter 50, Article V.
City of Marietta Code Section 7-8-18-070(F) provides that where the violator fails to take the remedial measures within ten days, or for intentional and flagrant violations, the public works director may issue a citation, and "Upon conviction, such person shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $1,000.00 or imprisonment for 60 days or both, and in addition, shall pay all costs and expenses involved in the case." The same subsection provides that "Each act of violation and each day upon which any violation shall occur shall constitute a separate offense." That figure belongs to the City of Marietta, and Thrare Contracting publishes no penalty number from another jurisdiction on this page.
Cobb County publishes no penalty amount for pressure washing, and none was located when the county's own documents were read on 2026-09-04. Cobb County Water states only that violators "can be heavily penalized with fines and prohibited from doing business in Cobb County", and Official Code of Cobb County Sections 50-181 and 50-191 state the definitions and the prohibition without an amount. Thrare Contracting therefore publishes no Cobb County figure.
City of Marietta Code Section 7-8-18-030(B)(3) names the approving body: improper connections "must be disconnected and redirected, if necessary, to an approved onsite wastewater management system or the sanitary sewer system upon approval of Marietta Board of Lights and Water Department." Cobb County Water System separately states that it treats wastewater from the City of Marietta through regional relationships, so the connection is approved by the city utility and the flow is treated by the county system.
City of Marietta Code Section 7-8-18-060 requires the responsible person to notify the authorized enforcement agency in person, by phone or by facsimile "no later than 24 hours of the nature, quantity and time of occurrence of the discharge", and to confirm a phone or in person notice "by written notice addressed and mailed to the Public Works Department within three business days". A commercial or industrial establishment must also keep an on site written record of the discharge and the corrective actions for at least three years.
Send the parcel address, whether the parcel sits inside the Marietta city limits if known, the approximate square footage by surface type, the tenant or access hours, and any known drainage constraint. Serving Marietta, Cobb County and metro Atlanta from Atlanta.