Driveways, houses, roofs, decks, HOA common areas and storefront frontage inside the Roswell city limits, quoted against City of Roswell Code Article 7.5 and Section 8.8.3(s) rather than against a county document that does not reach the parcel
Thrare Contracting washes exterior surfaces for homeowners, homeowner associations, property managers and small business owners at addresses inside the Roswell city limits: brick and fiber cement elevations in Martins Landing, Horseshoe Bend and Willeo, driveways and pool decks in Crabapple and River Park, storefront sidewalks and patio decking on Canton Street, and clubhouse, mail kiosk and entrance monument frontage across the city's covenant communities. Thrare Contracting is a Roswell vendor and not a Roswell business address: the trading company is Rare Earth Ltd, the office sits at the Atlanta address printed at the foot of this page, and Rare Earth Ltd has traded since January 19, 2020.
This page leads with the ordinance in each section, because a Roswell wash is a water disposal decision wearing a cleaning job's clothes. Wands, surface cleaners and soft wash pumps rent by the day to anybody. The scarce part is knowing whose rule book covers the parcel, which words that rule book uses for the liquid coming off the wall, and how fast the clock runs after somebody complains.
A property inside the Roswell city limits is governed by the City of Roswell Code of Ordinances, Chapter 7, Article 7.5, because Section 7.5.1.2 states its own reach in a single line: "The provisions of this ordinance shall apply throughout the City of Roswell." Section 7.5.1.3 then assigns the work to one government and no other: "The City of Roswell shall administer, implement, and enforce the provisions of this ordinance."
Fulton County publishes a separate stormwater program, and Fulton County states in its own words where that program stops. Fulton County Government's Stormwater Services page says the purpose of the county program "is to manage the surface water resources of unincorporated Fulton County, including administration, maintenance, operations, regulation, and enforcement", and adds that "For all other areas of the County, stormwater management is the responsibility of the individual cities." Roswell is an incorporated city, so a Fulton County stormwater document is the wrong document at a Roswell address.
One consequence follows for an owner holding property on both sides of the city line. A landlord with a house inside Roswell and a second house in unincorporated north Fulton is holding two properties under two governments, two ordinances and two enforcement staffs. A vendor procedure written against the county alone leaves the Roswell parcel uncovered, and a quote citing the county on a Roswell address tells a careful buyer that the vendor never checked which government it was dealing with.
The City of Roswell Code names wash water inside its definition of an illegal connection, which is an unusually direct place for a municipal code to put it. Section 7.5.2 reaches, among other things, conveyances "which allow any non-stormwater discharge including sewage, process wastewater, and wash water to enter the storm drain system", and Section 7.5.2 adds that the definition holds "regardless of whether such pipe, open channel, drain or conveyance has been previously allowed, permitted, or approved by an authorized enforcement agency". Sewage and wash water sit in one clause, in one sentence, at one level. A downspout tied into a yard drain twenty years ago is not grandfathered by age under Section 7.5.2.
Section 7.5.2 also settles the argument a Roswell homeowner most often hears at the curb. Roswell's definition of a pollutant runs through eighteen semicolon separated groups, and one of them is printed with a parenthetical that decides the question: "detergents (biodegradable or otherwise)". Read the parenthetical again. A soap sold as plant based, green, or safe for landscaping is still a detergent under Section 7.5.2, and Section 7.5.2 puts detergents inside the definition of a pollutant no matter what the marketing on the jug says. Cooking grease, degreasers, automotive fluids and petroleum hydrocarbons sit in the same definition.
Section 7.5.2 also defines the system that liquid must not reach, and the Roswell definition is deliberately wide. The Code describes the municipal separate storm sewer system as "any facility designed or used for collecting and/or conveying stormwater, including but not limited to any roads with drainage systems, highways, municipal streets, curbs, gutters, inlets, catch basins, piped storm drains, pumping facilities, structural stormwater controls, ditches, swales, natural and man-made or altered drainage channels, reservoirs, and other drainage structures" that is "Owned or maintained by the City of Roswell". A curb gutter on Alpharetta Highway is inside that definition. A grass swale behind a clubhouse is inside it. A yard inlet in a cul-de-sac island is inside it.
Section 7.5.3.1(a) bans the discharge in one sentence: "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." Two phrases in that sentence decide who is exposed on a Roswell job. "No person" catches the crew holding the wand and the owner who hired the crew, since Section 7.5.2 writes a person to include an individual, a partnership, a joint venture, a corporation, a trust and an estate. "Cause, or allow others under its control" catches the property that let the work go ahead.
Section 7.5.3.1(b) then prints the exemption list, and the list earns its place here for what is absent from it rather than for what is on it. Roswell's exempt categories are clean water sources: the list opens with "Water line flushing performed by a government agency, other potable water sources, landscape irrigation or lawn watering" and runs through diverted stream flows, rising and pumped ground water, footing and crawl space drains, air conditioning condensation, springs and wetland flows before closing on "any other water source not containing pollutants". Section 7.5.3.1(b) adds firefighting flows and anything the City has specified in writing as necessary to protect public health and safety.
Wash water off a driveway is on none of those lines. Watering a lawn is exempt in Roswell and rinsing the drive beside it is not. Roswell's list is also narrower than the neighboring county's in a way a homeowner should know about: DeKalb County exempts "Individual residential car washing where biodegradable soap is used" at Section 22.5-26(a), while Section 7.5.3.1(b) grants Roswell residents no washing line of any kind. The closing catch-all is no route in either, because Roswell already classes detergents and degreasers as pollutants, which makes soapy water something other than "water source not containing pollutants".
What that leaves is a rule short enough to write into a quote. On a Roswell parcel the water is contained, released onto a pervious area settled before the truck arrives, or pumped to a recovery tank. A curb gutter and a catch basin are never the answer.
Nothing costs money in Roswell until a written notice has gone out, and an owner gains more from knowing that sequence than from memorizing any figure in it. Section 7.5.7.2 provides that "Whenever the City of Roswell finds that a violation of this ordinance has occurred, the City of Roswell may order compliance by written notice of violation", and requires that notice to carry six listed items, among them "A description of the remedial measures necessary to restore compliance with this ordinance and a time schedule for the completion of such remedial action" and "A statement of the penalty or penalties that shall or may be assessed against the person to whom the notice of violation is directed".
The appeal window is the one place where the Roswell ordinance prints two different periods, and a property owner should know that before relying on either one. Section 7.5.7.2(a)(6) requires the notice to state that the determination "may be appealed to the City of Roswell by filing a written notice of appeal within thirty (30) days of service of notice of violation", while Section 7.5.7.3 states that "The notice of appeal must be received within ten (10) days from the date of the notice of violation." Thrare Contracting quotes both subsections as the Code prints them and does not resolve the difference, because resolving it belongs to the City and to a lawyer rather than to a cleaning contractor.
Section 7.5.7.3 sets the hearing clock as well. A hearing on an appeal "shall take place within fifteen (15) days from the date of receipt of the notice of appeal", and "The decision of the appropriate authority or their designee shall be final."
Money attaches after that step, and the Roswell civil penalty provision is worded in a way that separates it from every other city ordinance quoted on this site. City of Roswell Code Section 7.5.7.6 provides that where the alleged violator fails to cure "within ten days, or such greater period as the City of Roswell shall deem appropriate", the City "may impose a penalty no less than $1,000.00 (depending on the severity of the violation) for each day the violation remains unremedied after receipt of the notice of violation." Read the phrase "no less than". The comparable subsection in the City of Dunwoody Code, quoted on the Dunwoody page of this site, is capped with the words "not to exceed", while City of Roswell Code Section 7.5.7.6 sets a floor rather than a ceiling. The exposure also runs on days the violation stays uncorrected after a notice and a ten day cure period, not on days a crew happened to wash.
Section 7.5.7.7 is a separate instrument with a separate standard. For "intentional and flagrant violations of this ordinance" the City of Roswell may cite the violator into municipal court, and City of Roswell Code Section 7.5.7.7 provides that "Upon conviction, such person shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $1,000.00 or imprisonment for sixty (60) days or both. Each act of violation and each day upon which any violation shall occur shall constitute a separate offense." Sections 7.5.7.6 and 7.5.7.7 are not one penalty stated twice, and any page that merges them is misreporting the Roswell Code.
Both amounts above are Roswell's own, taken from Roswell's own code. No number on this page comes from a neighboring city, from Fulton County, or from the federal Clean Water Act, and none should. Trade websites circulate enormous daily federal amounts that trace back to other trade websites instead of to any statute, and a buyer who checks one of those in a single search stops believing every true sentence sitting next to it.
One subsection lands on the building instead of on the vendor, and a homeowner should read it twice. Where an abatement cost goes unpaid, Section 7.5.7.5 turns it into "a special assessment against the property" that "shall constitute a lien on the property for the amount of the assessment". Vendors move away. Liens stay on the deed.
Access is written broadly. Section 7.5.5 lets the City "enter and inspect properties and facilities at reasonable times as often as may be necessary", and the same section extends that to "inspection, sampling, photography, videotaping, examination and copying" of records tied to an NPDES stormwater permit. Under Section 7.5.5(f), stalling that visit is itself a violation.
Section 7.5.6 starts a clock that almost no cleaning quote in this market mentions. Whoever is responsible for the facility or the operation has to move on discovery, containment and cleanup, and then has to tell the City. Section 7.5.6 requires that person to "notify the authorized enforcement agency in person, by phone, or facsimile no later than twenty-four (24) hours of the nature, quantity and time of occurrence of the discharge", and the spoken notice has to be "confirmed by written notice addressed and mailed to the City of Roswell within three (3) business days".
A second duty in Section 7.5.6 attaches to the establishment rather than to whoever caused the problem. Where prohibited material comes off a commercial or industrial site, Section 7.5.6 requires the owner or operator to keep "an on-site written record of the discharge and the actions taken to prevent its recurrence", held "for at least three (3) years". Missing the notification is written up as its own violation at the end of the section.
Roswell publishes the number that clock is dialed on. The City's Watershed Protection page routes an illicit discharge report to the Roswell Department of Stormwater Management at (770) 641-3707 or swmp@roswellgov.com (read 2026-09-04). Thrare Contracting assembles the evidence for that clock during normal work instead of after an incident, so inlet protection photographs, a written containment method naming the receiving point for the day, and a same day completion record already exist if the City asks.
A crew may not blow leaves, grit or clippings into a Roswell street or storm drain, and the City of Roswell Code says so in a section separate from the stormwater article. Section 7.6.3.1 makes it unlawful "to dump, deposit, throw, cause or permit the dumping, blowing, depositing, or placing of yard waste, including any yard debris, grass clippings, weeds, leaves, and tree branches upon any street, sidewalk, avenue or other public property in the city without permission from the city, or into any river, creek, branch, public water, drain, sewer or receiving basin in the City of Roswell." The word "blowing" appears in the ordinance itself, which is what turns Section 7.6.3.1 from a rule about dumping into a rule about equipment.
Section 7.6.3.1 matters on an exterior cleaning job because dry debris removal is the first step of a competent wash. Leaves, grit and roof granules swept or blown off a driveway have to end up in a bag or on the owner's own ground, never pushed down the apron into the gutter where the next rain carries them into a creek. Dry removal also lowers the volume of slurry somebody has to recover later, so the ordinance and the method agree with each other.
The City of Roswell states the reason on its own Watershed Protection page: "Leaves and yard waste can degrade the water quality of the Chattahoochee and other local streams." The same page states the City's stream buffer position in one sentence, "An effective stream buffer begins at the top of the stream bank and extends at least 50 feet on either side", and records why the City enforces rather than recites. "Big Creek, Hog Waller Creek, and Foe Killer Creek watersheds in the City of Roswell are listed as not supporting their designated use", the City writes, and it attributes those listings to "elevated levels of bacteria specifically fecal coliform which may be caused by the influence of urban runoff and other bacteria sources" (read 2026-09-04).
The buffer sentence deserves one honest qualifier. The City of Roswell describes 50 feet as what makes a stream buffer effective, and the land-disturbance buffer rules that carry legal force sit in Article 7.3 of the Code and govern land-disturbing activity rather than exterior cleaning. Thrare Contracting cites the 50 foot figure as the City's own guidance on buffer function, and does not present exterior cleaning as an activity the Article 7.3 buffer provisions regulate.
Roswell regulates a pressure washer by decibel level at the receiving property line rather than by an hours window, and that distinction is the most misunderstood thing about working in this city. City of Roswell Code Section 8.8.3(s) declares unnecessary noise a public nuisance and sets numeric limits in its Table 1, measured "at or within the real property line of the receiving property". For a residential, public space, institutional or noise sensitive receiving property, Table 1 sets 70 dBA and 70 dBC from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. and 60 dBA and 60 dBC from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. For an office, commercial or business receiving property, Table 1 sets 70 dBA and 70 dBC in the daytime window and 65 dBA and 65 dBC in the night window. For industrial or manufacturing property, Table 1 sets 70 dBA and 70 dBC at all times.
Section 8.8.3(s)(3)b exempts two activities by clock hours instead of by level. Item 11 exempts "Noise that results from landscaping and lawn maintenance between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m.", and item 12 exempts "Noise that results from construction both private and commercial between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m." Here is the honest limit on those two exemptions, stated rather than smoothed. Pressure washing is neither landscaping nor construction, so neither exemption is established to cover a wash crew, and Thrare Contracting has found no City of Roswell provision that names exterior cleaning specifically. The conservative reading is that a pressure washer in Roswell is measured against the Table 1 limits at every hour of the day.
Section 8.8.3(s)(4)b adds a distance rule for the equipment closest in character to a wash rig. Commercial or industrial power tools used for landscaping and yard maintenance "shall be operated with a muffler", and motorized equipment used in those activities "shall not be operated on a residential property or within two hundred fifty (250) feet of a residential property line, between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. on weekdays, or between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m. on weekends", unless the work is emergency work or meets the Table 1 limits. Thrare Contracting therefore treats 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on a weekday and 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on a weekend as the conservative default in Roswell, and confirms anything outside that window in writing before dispatch.
Work that genuinely cannot fit those hours has a written route rather than a hopeful one. Section 8.8.3(s)(7)a provides that a person requesting temporary relief "shall apply to the Zoning Administrator or designee for a special administrative permit for a period of time not to exceed thirty (30) days", and Section 8.8.3(s)(7)b requires the application to address "the nature of the noise, attenuation measures, and the hardships to the applicant and others if the permit is not granted". Section 8.8.3(s)(7)d states that "No special administrative permit shall be granted for amplified sound", which tells a reader the route is built for equipment noise rather than for events. Section 8.8.3(s)(7)f sends an appeal of the Zoning Administrator's decision to the city council.
Noise penalties in Roswell escalate by offense, and City of Roswell Code Section 8.8.3(s)(8)a.3 sets all three steps: a first offense carries "A civil penalty of not less than $100.00 and not more than $1,000.00", a second offense carries "A civil penalty of not less than $500.00 and not more than $1,000.00", and any further offense carries "a criminal penalty of a fine not to exceed $2,000.00 and/or incarceration up to six (6) months." Section 8.8.3(s)(8)a.2 makes the citation route explicit where the noise comes from a business: the citation "may be issued in the name of the business", and "the owner of the property upon which the business is located may also be served with a citation." A property owner who hires a crew that runs a machine at 11 p.m. beside a Roswell subdivision is inside the citation route, not outside it.
The Chattahoochee River corridor changes what may be disturbed on the ground near the river, and it does not change how a wall is cleaned. The City of Roswell Code defines the instrument at Section 7.3.2 as the "Metropolitan River Protection Act (MRPA): A state law referenced as O.C.G.A. § 12-5-440 et seq. which addresses environmental and developmental matters in certain metropolitan river corridors and their drainage basins."
The Atlanta Regional Commission administers that corridor and describes it on its own Metropolitan River Protection Act page as "a 48-mile stretch of the Chattahoochee River between Buford Dam and Peachtree Creek" carrying a "2,000 foot buffer along both banks of the river and its impoundments", with the Act "amended in 1998 to extend the Corridor an additional 36 miles to the downstream limits of Fulton and Douglas counties". The Atlanta Regional Commission states the review duty in one sentence: "All land-disturbing activity in the corridor must be reviewed, approved and certified for consistency with Corridor Plan standards" (read 2026-09-04).
The City of Roswell confirms that the corridor reaches property inside the city, and the City does it in the least expected place, an answer about trees. The City's Trees page states that "A Tree Removal Permit is required for the removal of any tree larger than 3 inches in diameter", and that "All property owners/residents in the River Corridor (property within 2,000 feet of the Chattahoochee River) must contact the Planning & Zoning office before removing any trees." The City directs corridor properties to Planning and Zoning at (770) 817-6720 and points the full rule to Roswell's Unified Development Code Article 12.1.3 (read 2026-09-04).
Two practical consequences follow for exterior cleaning near the river, and neither one is a permit. First, exterior cleaning is not land-disturbing activity, so a pressure washing visit is not a Metropolitan River Protection Act certificate matter, and Thrare Contracting does not represent it as one. Second, a Roswell property within 2,000 feet of the Chattahoochee is a property where the ground itself sits under an extra layer of state and regional review, so a crew planning to release rinse water onto a lawn near a bank has to settle where that ground drains before it settles the wash method.
The three inch tree threshold is worth carrying into scheduling for a separate reason. Roswell canopy is what shades the north elevations that grow the heaviest organic film, and an owner who decides the answer to a dirty wall is removing the tree meets a permit at anything over three inches in diameter, plus a Planning and Zoning call if the parcel sits in the corridor. Cleaning on an interval is the cheaper answer to a shaded wall, and soft washing at low pressure with dwell time is the method that keeps a shaded elevation serviceable without touching the tree.
The Roswell stormwater fee is billed on impervious area, which makes the bill the fastest sanity check available on an exterior cleaning quote. The City of Roswell states on its Stormwater Utility page that "The City of Roswell has utilized a stormwater utility fee since 2011 to finance the replacement and repair of the City's aging stormwater infrastructure", that "The fee paid is based on the amount of impervious surface area on each developed property in the City", and that "Commercial properties will receive a bill based on their actual impervious surface area."
The City's published fee table, in the column headed "Monthly Fee as of July 1, 2024", sets Residential Tier 1 at $3.91 for impervious surface "Up to 3,400 square feet", Tier 2 at $5.99 for "3,401 to 4,950 square feet", Tier 3 at $8.99 for "4,951 to 10,000 square feet", and Large Residential Tier 4 at $5.99 for impervious surface greater than 10,000 square feet. The published non-residential rate is $5.99 as well. Two rows in that table carry a star, and the footnote against them states how the charge is actually produced: "Rate calculated by multiplying total amount of impervious surface times the monthly rate divided by 4,100 square feet." The non-residential figure is therefore a rate per 4,100 square feet of impervious surface per month rather than a flat monthly bill, and an owner who reads it as a flat bill understates a large property by a wide margin.
One caution belongs beside the fee, and it is the caution most often missed. A stormwater utility charge is a fee rule and not a discharge license. A Roswell property billed at Tier 3 sits under exactly the same Section 7.5.3.1 prohibition as a property billed at Tier 1, and paying the bill authorizes nothing at all. The useful part of the bill is arithmetic: an owner who knows the tier already knows roughly how much hard surface the property carries, and a cleaning quote whose square footage is far out of step with that tier deserves a question before it deserves a signature.
Thrare Contracting quotes a Roswell scope as named surfaces, each with a method and an interval, rather than as a list of services. The sub-scopes that appear most on Roswell property are these:
Sequence is the part of exterior cleaning a buyer cannot verify from a photograph, so Thrare Contracting publishes the order it runs on an occupied Roswell site:
Thrare Contracting settles the money boundary at the quote stage, not at the halfway point of the job. A quoted Roswell wash carries these inside the number:
Quoted as separate lines, because folding them into a wash rate hides them from the person paying:
No unit rate appears on this page. Two Roswell walls of identical area price differently when one sits in deep shade under canopy and the other faces open sky, so a square foot number quoted before anyone has seen the soil load is a number the buyer cannot rely on.
Certifications held by Rare Earth Ltd: DBE, ACDBE and MBE, plus small disadvantaged business status. Federal registration sits in SAM under UEI Z4WKS4UE8NJ6 with CAGE 9JAV8, and work authorization runs through E-Verify under company identification number 2748681. HUBZone, 8(a) and SOC 2 are not held, and Thrare Contracting does not claim them. Each issuing agency is named on the credentials and compliance page and the DBE and MBE page. Neighboring city pages carry their own ordinances rather than this one: Alpharetta, Sandy Springs, and pressure washing across metro Atlanta.
Thrare Contracting serves Roswell from Atlanta rather than from an office inside the city. Rare Earth Ltd trades as Thrare Contracting across Roswell and north Fulton County, from 8735 Dunwoody Pl, Ste R, Atlanta, GA 30350.
A property inside the Roswell city limits is governed by the City of Roswell Code of Ordinances, Article 7.5, because Section 7.5.1.2 states that "The provisions of this ordinance shall apply throughout the City of Roswell." Fulton County Government 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."
The City of Roswell Code names wash water in Section 7.5.2, which defines an illegal connection to include any conveyance allowing "any non-stormwater discharge including sewage, process wastewater, and wash water to enter the storm drain system". Section 7.5.3.1(a) prohibits discharging any pollutant or water containing a pollutant into the city storm sewer system, and pressure washing wash water appears nowhere in the Section 7.5.3.1(b) list of exempt discharges.
Biodegradable soap stays a pollutant in Roswell. Section 7.5.2 writes the parenthetical "detergents (biodegradable or otherwise)" straight into the pollutant definition, so what the container claims changes nothing about how Section 7.5.3.1(a) treats the water. The Roswell exemption list carries no residential washing line at all, unlike the DeKalb County list at Section 22.5-26(a), so wash water on a Roswell property goes to containment, to an agreed pervious release point, or to a recovery tank.
City of Roswell Code Section 7.5.7.6 provides that where an alleged violator fails to cure within ten days of a notice of violation, the City "may impose a penalty no less than $1,000.00 (depending on the severity of the violation) for each day the violation remains unremedied after receipt of the notice of violation." City of Roswell Code Section 7.5.7.7 separately provides that for "intentional and flagrant violations" a convicted person "shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $1,000.00 or imprisonment for sixty (60) days or both." Both figures belong to the City of Roswell, and Thrare Contracting publishes no penalty number from another jurisdiction on this page.
City of Roswell Code Section 8.8.3(s) sets decibel limits rather than an hours window for exterior cleaning, and Table 1 allows 70 dBA at a residential receiving property line from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. and 60 dBA from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. The Section 8.8.3(s)(3)b exemptions cover landscaping and construction between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m., and pressure washing is neither, so Thrare Contracting treats 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on weekdays and 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on weekends as the conservative default. Work outside that window runs through the Section 8.8.3(s)(7) special administrative permit, which the Zoning Administrator may grant for a period not to exceed thirty days.
Send the address, the approximate square footage by surface type, and any known drainage constraint on the site. Serving Roswell, north Fulton County and metro Atlanta from Atlanta.