Houses, HOA common areas, retail centers, restaurants and commercial buildings inside the Snellville city limits, quoted against the City of Snellville Unified Development Ordinance rather than against a Gwinnett County ordinance that stops at the city line
Thrare Contracting cleans exterior surfaces for homeowners, homeowner association boards, shopping center owners, restaurant operators, medical and professional office landlords and apartment managers at addresses inside the City of Snellville, in south Gwinnett County. Snellville is a service area rather than 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.
Every regulatory section on this page names its instrument first, for one reason. Snellville is an incorporated city sitting inside Gwinnett County, and the two governments run separate stormwater instruments with separate reach. A contractor who quotes a Snellville parcel against the county document is quoting against a rule that does not apply there, and a buyer who accepts that quote has no idea which set of duties the crew is actually working to.
An address inside the Snellville city limits is governed by the City of Snellville Unified Development Ordinance, Chapter 400, Article 3, Section 403-3, titled by Section 403-3.1 as the "Illicit Discharge and Illegal Connection Ordinance." The UDO states its own territorial reach at Section 101-1.3.A: "This UDO applies to all land, uses, buildings, and structures in the corporate boundaries of the City of Snellville." A Snellville parcel is inside those corporate boundaries, so Section 403-3 is the governing instrument on that parcel.
Gwinnett County's Illicit Discharge and Illegal Connection ordinance does not reach that same parcel, and the county ordinance says so itself. Gwinnett County Code Section 100-21(e) reads: "The provisions of this article shall apply throughout the unincorporated area of the county. The county may enter into agreements with cities within the county, or other municipalities, to carry out the purpose of this article." Snellville is incorporated, not unincorporated, so Chapter 100 is the wrong document to quote at a Snellville address unless an interjurisdictional agreement is produced.
That distinction is not academic for a portfolio held across south Gwinnett. An owner holding a retail strip on Scenic Highway inside the city and a flex building a mile out in unincorporated Gwinnett is holding two properties under two ordinances, two enforcement departments and two notice procedures. Snellville's own record confirms the city runs its own program: the City of Snellville Stormwater Management Program filed with the Georgia Environmental Protection Division in August 2024 states that "The City adopted an Illicit Discharge and Illegal Connection ordinance on June 28, 2004," that the ordinance was later "incorporated into the City of Snellville Code of Ordinances," and that the ordinance "provides the authority to conduct inspections and monitoring, control illicit discharges and connections, and control illegal dumping and spills into the MS4."
The City of Snellville names wash water twice in its own definitions, and one of the two closes the argument outright. Section 102-2 of the UDO defines a pollutant as "Anything that causes or contributes to pollution," and then lists what pollutants include: "paints, varnishes, and solvents; petroleum hydrocarbons; automotive fluids; cooking grease; detergents (biodegradable or otherwise); degreasers; cleaning chemicals; non-hazardous liquid and solid wastes and yard wastes; refuse, rubbish, garbage, litter, or other discarded or abandoned objects and accumulations, so that same may cause or contribute to pollution; floatables; pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers; liquid and solid wastes; process wastewater and wash water; sewage, fecal coliform and pathogens; dissolved and particulate metals; animal wastes; wastes and residues that result from constructing a building or structure; concrete and cement; and noxious or offensive matter of any kind."
Read the phrase "process wastewater and wash water" inside that list. In Snellville, wash water is a pollutant by name in the code's own definition, which removes the inference step that a contractor elsewhere has to argue. Read the parenthetical beside detergents as well: "detergents (biodegradable or otherwise)" means the label on the jug changes nothing about the status of the liquid. A soap sold as plant based, green or safe for landscaping is a detergent under Section 102-2, and a detergent is a pollutant under Section 102-2 regardless of how it is marketed.
Section 102-2 names wash water a second time, inside the definition of an illegal connection: "A pipe, open channel, drain or conveyance, whether on the surface or subsurface, which allows an illicit discharge to enter the storm drain system including but not limited to any conveyances which allow any non-stormwater discharge including sewage, process wastewater, and wash water to enter the storm drain system, 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 the same clause of the same sentence at the same level.
Section 403-3.4.A of the Snellville UDO states the prohibition in one sentence: "It is a violation of this section for any person to 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 reach past the crew. The words "any person" cover the operator holding the wand, and the words "cause, or allow others under its control" cover the property that let the work go ahead.
Section 403-3.4.B then prints the complete exemption list, which is worth reading for what is absent from it. The exempt discharges are "Water line flushing performed by a government agency, other potable water sources, landscape irrigation or lawn watering, diverted stream flows, rising groundwater, groundwater infiltration to storm drains, uncontaminated pumped groundwater, foundation or footing drains (not including active groundwater dewatering systems), crawl space pumps, air conditioning condensation, springs, natural riparian habitat or wetland flows, and any other water source not containing pollutants," plus "Discharges or flows from firefighting, and other discharges specified in writing by the City as being necessary to protect public health and safety."
Pressure washing wash water appears nowhere on that list. Lawn watering is exempt and a surface wash is not. The closing catch-all covers only "any other water source not containing pollutants," and Section 102-2 has already placed wash water itself, along with detergents, degreasers, cleaning chemicals and cooking grease, inside the definition of a pollutant, so wash water cannot enter through the catch-all either. The operating rule on a Snellville job is therefore short: the water goes into containment, into a recovery tank, or onto an agreed pervious area, and never into a curb inlet.
Enforcement in Snellville starts with a written notice of violation from the Department of Planning and Development, not from Public Works. Section 403-3.3.A assigns the job: "The Department of Planning and Development administers, implements, and enforces the provisions of this section." Section 403-3.9.B provides that "Whenever the Department finds that a violation of this section has occurred, the Department may order compliance by written notice of violation," and requires the notice to name the alleged violator, describe the property, state the nature of the violation, set out "A description of the remedial measures necessary to restore compliance with this section and a time schedule for the completion of such remedial action," and state the penalties that will or may be assessed.
Section 403-3.9.C gives the recipient 30 days from the date of the notice to file a written appeal, sets the hearing before the Director within 15 days from receipt of that appeal, and makes the Director's decision final. Section 403-3.9.D allows the Department or its contractors to enter the property and abate the violation if it has not been corrected, or, where an appeal was taken, within 3 days of a decision upholding the Director.
Money attaches after that sequence, and only on the terms the ordinance sets. Snellville UDO Section 403-3.9.F provides that where the alleged violator fails to cure within 10 days after the Department has acted, the Department "may impose a penalty not to exceed $1,000.00 (depending on the severity of the violation) for each day the violation remains unremedied after receipt of the notice of violation." The daily clock under Section 403-3.9.F therefore runs on days the violation stays uncorrected after a notice, not on days a crew happened to wash.
Snellville UDO Section 403-3.9.G is a separate instrument with a separate standard, and one word absent from it is worth noticing. Section 403-3.9.G reads: "For violations of this section, the Department may issue a citation to the alleged violator requiring such person to appear in a court of competent jurisdiction to answer charges for such violation. Upon conviction, such person will be punished by a fine not to exceed $1,000.00 or imprisonment for 60 days or both. Each act of violation and each day upon which any violation occurs will constitute a separate offense." Neighboring Gwinnett cities qualify the equivalent clause with the words "intentional and flagrant"; Snellville's Section 403-3.9.G carries no such qualifier and applies to violations of the section generally.
Every figure in the three paragraphs above belongs to the City of Snellville Unified Development Ordinance and to no other government. Gwinnett County's own maximum of a $1,000.00 fine and 60 days in county jail sits at Gwinnett County Code Section 100-27(f) and belongs to unincorporated Gwinnett, not to Snellville, even though the two numbers happen to look alike. The numbers alone never tell a reader which document is being cited, which is precisely why this page names the section every time. Thrare Contracting publishes no penalty figure sourced to a neighboring city, to a county, or to the federal Clean Water Act on this page; the large per-day federal amounts repeated across the pressure washing trade web trace to secondary blogs rather than to a statute.
One clause reaches the building rather than the contractor, and property owners should know it exists. Section 403-3.9.E.1 provides that an unpaid abatement cost "must become a special assessment against the property and must constitute a lien on the property for the amount of the assessment," and Section 403-3.9.I.2 lets the Department recover "attorney's fees, court costs, and other expenses associated with enforcement of section, including sampling and monitoring expenses." A contractor can leave Gwinnett County. A lien stays on the parcel.
Snellville UDO Section 403-3.8 sets a reporting clock that almost no exterior cleaning quote mentions. Section 403-3.8.A requires anyone responsible for a facility, activity or operation with information of a known or suspected release to "take all necessary steps to ensure the discovery, containment, and cleanup of such release so as to minimize the effects of the discharge." Section 403-3.8.C then sets the deadlines: notice to the Department "by phone, facsimile or in-person within 24 hours of discovering the discharge," detailing "the nature, quantity and time of occurrence of the discharge," confirmed "by written notice addressed and mailed to the Department within 3 business days."
Section 403-3.8.C adds a record keeping duty that lands on the property rather than on the vendor: "If the discharge emanates from a commercial or industrial establishment, the owner or operator of such establishment must also retain an on-site written record of the discharge and the actions taken to prevent its recurrence. Such records must be retained for at least 3 years." Section 403-3.8.E makes failure to give that notification a violation in its own right.
Thrare Contracting produces the evidence for that clock during normal work instead of reconstructing it afterward. Photographs of inlet protection before water is turned on, a written containment note naming the receiving point chosen for the day, and a same day completion record give a Snellville property contemporaneous documentation. Section 403-3.7.A gives the Director the right to "enter and inspect premises, properties, and facilities at reasonable times as often as may be necessary to determine compliance with this section," so the file is worth having before anyone requests it.
The City of Snellville screens storm sewer outfalls in dry weather on a five year rotation, and dry weather is exactly when a wash water discharge shows up. The City's Stormwater Management Program defines the condition precisely: the City "inspects outfalls during a period of dry weather, which is defined as a period of precipitation of <0.1" within the previous 72 hours." The same program divides the City into five sectors, "approximately 20% of the outfalls" each, screens one sector per reporting year, and sets the measurable goal that "100% of the total outfalls are screened within the 5-year permit term."
Consider what that means for a wash run on a clear Tuesday in August. Rain is the only lawful reason for flow at an outfall after three dry days, so flow observed on a dry day is a finding by construction, and the program commits the City to chase it: "If a dry weather flow is encountered, the City implements investigative and follow-up procedures including the performance of field tests, sampling, and source tracing to identify any potential illicit discharges." A crew that runs a surface cleaner into a curb inlet in fair weather is producing the exact signal the screening program exists to detect.
Complaints move faster than the rotation. The Stormwater Management Program states that the City "investigates all complaints within 5 business days of receipt," that complaints arrive by phone and email and through a "Report a Problem" button on the City website, and that each one generates a work order recording the date, the complainant, and the location and nature of the complaint. The City's own Public Works page tells residents what to watch for, listing "Pipes with flowing water during a dry period" among the signs of an illicit discharge and giving 770-985-3527 as the Public Works reporting number.
The same City page lists "Laundry and car wash water" as a type of illicit discharge, and advises residents to "Wash your car on your lawn or at a commercial car wash." Snellville has therefore already told its own residents, in plain language on a government page, that cleaning water belongs somewhere other than a storm drain. A contractor arguing otherwise on a Snellville driveway is arguing against the City's published guidance as well as against Section 403-3.4.A.
Two further details from the Stormwater Management Program shape how a Snellville job is planned. The City reports its NPDES Permit Number as GAS000133 under a Phase I Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System permit with an effective date of June 11, 2024, and names the receiving river basin as the Ocmulgee. Snellville drains south and east toward the Ocmulgee rather than toward the Chattahoochee, which is why a Snellville job and a Sandy Springs job answer to different receiving waters even though both sit in metro Atlanta.
The default answer in Gwinnett County is the sanitary sewer, and inside Snellville that sewer belongs to the county rather than to the city. The City of Snellville Stormwater Management Program states it directly: "Gwinnett County maintains and operates the sanitary sewer system within the City of Snellville," and commits the City to report "100% of confirmed or suspected sanitary sewer spills" to the Gwinnett County Department of Public Utilities. So a Snellville wash is governed by a city ordinance and disposed of through a county utility, and both facts have to be true at once for the job to be compliant.
The method standard for that disposal is the county's. Gwinnett County Storm Water Management Division publishes Water Quality Protection Guideline WQ-1, "Surface Cleaning," dated 04/05/2007 and developed in cooperation with the Power Washers of North America. WQ-1 is county guidance implementing the county ordinance, so at a Snellville address WQ-1 functions as a method reference rather than as the governing instrument, while Section 403-3.4.A supplies the authority. The method still satisfies the City prohibition, because Snellville's wording reaches "any pollutants or waters containing any pollutants."
Three clauses of WQ-1 decide most Snellville jobs. Section 3.1(10) states flatly: "There are NO 'environmentally friendly' or 'biodegradable' cleaning products that are approved for discharge to storm drains." Section 3.1(11) states: "As the generator of the washwater the surface cleaner is considered jointly responsible with the property owner for its appropriate disposal." Section 3.2.1.1(g) restricts sanitary sewer discharge to privately owned parts of the system and never a public manhole, and Section 3.2.1.3 permits release to a grassy area only with "a minimum separation of 50 feet between the discharge point to the grassy/vegetated area and the nearest storm drain or waterway." The full guideline is walked clause by clause on the Lawrenceville pressure washing page, which is not restated here.
During a declared level three or level four drought, washing a driveway or a building in Snellville is prohibited outright, and the instrument that prohibits it sits in Snellville's own city code. Chapter 26, Article IV of the Snellville Code of Ordinances is titled by Section 26-561(a) as "the Gwinnett County Water Conservation and Drought Restriction Ordinance," adopted by Ordinance No. 2011-04 on March 14, 2011, and Section 26-561(c) sets its reach: "This article shall apply to all persons and jurisdictions receiving potable or reuse water from Gwinnett County."
The prohibitions escalate by declared level, and exterior cleaning is named at two of them. Section 26-565(a)(2)c.2 prohibits, during a declared drought response level two, "Washing pavement, such as streets, gutters, sidewalks and driveways except when necessary for public health and safety." Section 26-565(a)(3) repeats that prohibition at level three and adds two more at c.4 and c.6: "Washing buildings or structures except for immediate fire protection," and "Using water for ornamental purposes, such as fountains, reflecting pools, and waterfalls except when necessary to support aquatic life." Section 26-565(a)(4) closes the door entirely at level four: "No outdoor water use is allowed, other than the activities exempted in subsection 26-564(a) of this article, or as the EPD may allow."
A non-drought day carries a schedule as well. Section 26-564(b)(2) allows outdoor water use not otherwise listed 24 hours per day but only on assigned days: odd-numbered addresses on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, and even-numbered addresses on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. A homeowner booking a Friday wash at an odd-numbered Snellville address is booking a day the schedule does not assign to that address, and a contractor who has never read Section 26-564(b)(2) will not raise it.
Runoff volume carries its own rule independent of drought level. Snellville Code Section 26-566 provides that "Wasting water is prohibited if such usage leaves a trail of flowing water for more than 50 feet off the property," and that water wasting "is subject to fines, penalties, and enforcement up to and including termination of service." Containment is therefore doing double duty on a Snellville job: the same berm that keeps wash water out of the inlet under Section 403-3.4.A keeps the trail of flowing water on the property under Section 26-566.
Enforcement of the drought article runs on a different track from the stormwater article, with different amounts. Snellville Code Section 26-567(b) authorizes the director to fine a nonconserving water user on an escalating schedule "assessed on a per-violation, per-day basis," and provides that "No single-day fine shall exceed $250.00." Snellville Code Section 26-568(d) sets citation penalties on conviction, and for a business those run $500.00 on a first address citation and $1,000.00 on a second, third or fourth, with the business licensing division notified of the conviction. Section 26-569(e) authorizes a $500.00 service restoration fee where water service has been terminated under that article. Those amounts belong to Chapter 26, Article IV and to nothing else on this page.
Snellville sets a narrower daytime window than most of its neighbors, and the operative section is in Chapter 26, Article II of the City Code. Section 26-188 makes it a violation to carry out "The erection, including excavation, demolition, alteration or repair, of any building other than between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. on weekdays, except on urgent necessity in the interest of public health and safety, and then only with a permit from the city building official." Pressure washing is neither erection nor demolition, so Thrare Contracting treats 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on weekdays as the conservative default in Snellville rather than as a rule that names exterior cleaning.
Two neighboring sections reach equipment more directly than Section 26-188 does. Section 26-191 makes it a violation to operate "any landscape maintenance devices, including two-cycle, electrical or battery-powered blower or other similar device between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. daily within or adjacent to residential or noise sensitive areas such that the sound from such device is plainly audible across the real property line of the source." Section 26-201 reaches the machine itself, making it a violation to operate "any noise-creating blower, power fan or any internal combustion engine, the operation of which causes noise due to the explosion of operating gases or fluids, unless the noise from such blower, power fan or internal combustion engine is equipped with a muffler device sufficient to deaden such noise." A gas pressure washer with a compromised muffler is squarely inside Section 26-201 at any hour.
Section 26-182 sits above all of them as a general prohibition on any "loud, unnecessary or unusual noise, or any noise that unreasonably or unnecessarily annoys, disturbs, injures or endangers the comfort, repose, health, peace or safety of others in the city," and Section 26-204 lists only three exemptions: safety signals and warning devices, authorized emergency vehicles responding to an emergency, and emergency work to restore property to a safe condition after a public calamity or to protect against imminent danger. Section 26-204 closes by directing that applications for any other exemption "shall be filed with the city clerk for approval by the mayor," stating the time, date, organization and reason. Overnight work at a Snellville retail center runs through that clerk application, not through an assumption.
Thrare Contracting scopes a Snellville property by surface and by cleaning method, because the two decide the equipment, the containment plan and the risk of damage. The scopes below are quoted individually or bundled on one mobilization.
The sequence below is built around two Snellville-specific constraints: the outfall screening program that makes dry weather flow a finding, and the 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. weekday window that Section 26-188 sets as the practical daytime envelope.
Thrare Contracting quotes a Snellville property after a site walk, because the disposal route and the number of inlets move a price more than the square footage does. A slab draining to one inlet beside an accessible private clean-out prices differently from the same slab with four inlets and no sewer access on the parcel.
Company-wide commercial terms and service intervals are set once on the commercial pressure washing hub and are not restated city by city. The split is deliberate: one page for company policy, one page for what changes at a Snellville address.
Six items decide whether a Snellville job runs clean, and four of them are answers only the property has.
Gwinnett County answered that question in writing before any contractor did, and the county's warning is blunt. The Gwinnett County Water Resources consumer brochure, "A Consumer's Guide to Hiring a Pressure Washing Contractor," states that "The management of polluted wash water often requires the use of specialized equipment. Not all contractors have this equipment and may not be able to comply with the law." The same brochure warns owners that "as the consumer, you may also be held responsible for illegal discharges that occur on your property," which mirrors the way Section 403-3.4.A reaches whoever allows others under its control to discharge.
Gwinnett County also maintains a register for exactly this purpose. WQ-1 Section 4(2) records that the county "has established a 'List of Businesses Capable of Collecting Surface Cleaning Washwater,'" that operators apply on Form WQ-1c, that applicants "will be required to demonstrate the capabilities of their equipment," that the list "will be supplied to the public," and that inclusion "does not constitute an endorsement of the operator by the county." A Snellville buyer can request the current list from the Gwinnett County Stormwater Management Division at 678-376-6700.
Rare Earth Ltd is not on that list as of September 4, 2026, and this page makes no claim of inclusion. Stating that plainly is more useful to a buyer than an implication would be, and the list is worth requesting whichever contractor a Snellville property hires. Four questions separate bids at a Snellville address, and none of them are about price:
Every item below is verifiable by a buyer without asking Thrare Contracting for anything.
One public procurement in Gwinnett County is worth naming precisely. Gwinnett County Public Schools awarded Bid B-2622LM, On Demand Pressure Washing, Softwash and Window Cleaning, on August 31, 2026, for a term running September 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027, and Rare Earth Ltd is one of the awarded vendors. The award is a multiple-award on-demand pool rather than an exclusive contract: 12 of 12 responsive bidders were awarded, the district published no dollar value, and the district's own award language states that "Participation in this contract does not guarantee any minimum amount of work." No work has been performed under it. What the award demonstrates is a completed competitive public procurement in the county Snellville sits in, and nothing more than that.
Thrare Contracting works the whole city and the unincorporated pockets immediately around it, and the jurisdiction question is settled per address rather than per neighborhood.
Thrare Contracting is based in Atlanta and serves Snellville as a service area. Rare Earth Ltd, trading as Thrare Contracting, works across Snellville, south Gwinnett County and metro Atlanta, and the company address is 8735 Dunwoody Pl, Ste R, Atlanta, GA 30350.
Gwinnett County's illicit discharge ordinance does not reach a Snellville address. Gwinnett County Code Section 100-21(e) states that "The provisions of this article shall apply throughout the unincorporated area of the county," and Snellville is an incorporated city. The governing instrument at a Snellville address is the City of Snellville Unified Development Ordinance, Section 403-3, which Section 101-1.3.A applies to "all land, uses, buildings, and structures in the corporate boundaries of the City of Snellville."
The Snellville code names wash water twice. Section 102-2 of the Unified Development Ordinance lists "process wastewater and wash water" inside its definition of a pollutant, and names wash water again in its definition of an illegal connection alongside sewage. Section 403-3.4.A then prohibits discharging "any pollutants or waters containing any pollutants, other than stormwater" into the municipal separate storm sewer system, and the Section 403-3.4.B exemption list does not include wash water.
A biodegradable detergent is still a pollutant in Snellville. Section 102-2 of the Unified Development Ordinance defines a pollutant to include "detergents (biodegradable or otherwise)," and Gwinnett County's surface cleaning guideline WQ-1 states at Section 3.1(10) that "There are NO 'environmentally friendly' or 'biodegradable' cleaning products that are approved for discharge to storm drains." Wash water on a Snellville job goes to containment, to a recovery tank, or to an agreed pervious release point.
Washing pavement is prohibited during a declared level two or level three drought in Snellville. Snellville Code Section 26-565(a)(2)c.2 and Section 26-565(a)(3)c.2 both prohibit "Washing pavement, such as streets, gutters, sidewalks and driveways except when necessary for public health and safety," Section 26-565(a)(3)c.4 adds "Washing buildings or structures except for immediate fire protection" at level three, and Section 26-565(a)(4) allows no outdoor water use at level four other than the Section 26-564(a) exemptions.
Snellville City Code Section 26-188 restricts erection, demolition, alteration or repair of a building to the hours between 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. on weekdays, and Thrare Contracting treats that window as the conservative default for exterior cleaning in Snellville. Section 26-191 separately bars landscape maintenance devices between 9:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. daily near residential areas, and Section 26-204 routes any other exemption request through an application filed with the city clerk for approval by the mayor.
Send the address, the surfaces to be cleaned, the access hours and any known drainage constraint. Serving Snellville, south Gwinnett County and metro Atlanta from Atlanta.