Do we need a permit from the city before you wash the building?

Not under the sections of the code we have read. The one place approval enters is section 26-160(b), where the public works director determines that removing visible debris and sediment is not feasible; then the surface may only be washed with the director's written approval.

We have been given seventy-two hours to abate graffiti. What can you do inside that?

We get back to you within four hours of your request — a response promise, not a turnaround guarantee. What we can say in advance is what a deadline does not change: the surface still decides what may be put on it, and the seventy-two hours in section 12-17 do not lift that limit. Estimates are free. Tell us the deadline and what is on the wall when you get in touch.

Our maintenance crew degreases the service court and hoses it down. Does that matter here?

Worth knowing before we quote. Degreasers and solvents are named in section 26-160(a) among the polluting matter that may not be discharged to any stormwater system in the city, and section 26-161 lets the director address a cease-and-desist to the person believed responsible, to the property owner, or to both. Note as well who section 26-160(b) is written about: it names no contractor at all, only the washing of any public or private street, building, sidewalk or parking area, so wherever it reaches your site the debris-first sequence is not something that starts when our truck arrives. Tell us what has been used on that slab and how recently.

Commercial pressure washing in Altamonte Springs

Some of what bears on a commercial wash in Altamonte Springs is written down in the city code. Chapter 26 sets a condition that has to be met before any building here is washed, publishes a list of substances that may not reach a stormwater system, and describes a fallback that would put a job beyond us. Chapter 12 adds a clock.

A seventy-two-hour clock, and the list in the other chapter

The graffiti article of chapter 12, adopted in October 2021, requires that an owner and tenant keep all sidewalks, walls, buildings, fences, driveways, signs and other surfaces free from graffiti. The duty runs to the tenant as well, so in a leased plaza it can sit with whoever occupies the suite. Section 12-17 allows seventy-two hours from an order to abate; section 12-18 treats a miss as consent for the city, or a contractor it authorises, to enter and do the work; section 12-20 then invoices the owner for administrative expenses and costs, and an unpaid invoice becomes a special assessment lien after thirty days. A three-day clock leaves little room to compare methods. The same code has an opinion about paint: section 26-160(a) lists paints at item three among the polluting matter that may not be discharged to any stormwater system in the city. What that section governs is not owning the product but where the product ends up — which on an exterior wall means the overspray, the rinse, and the sidewalk under both. So the deadline in one chapter and the list in the other meet on the same wall, and the choice of method they force is better made before the work starts than in the last hour of the seventy-two. Letting the clock run out takes the choice out of the owner's hands: section 12-18 gives the job to whoever the city authorises.

A separate list of what may not reach a storm drain, and who the order can be addressed to

Section 26-160(a) is a prohibition in its own right: it names matter that may not be discharged to any stormwater system in the city, and its list says it is not limited to what it names. One entry is worth knowing before a method is picked rather than after: steam cleaning waste, at item four. It sits apart from the conditional exemption for sidewalk and building power washing in section 26-159, which our Altamonte Springs page sets out and which turns on not impairing the use of the city's storm sewer system or breaching the conditions of its stormwater permit. Behind both sits section 26-161, which lets the director issue a cease-and-desist order, hand-delivered or sent by registered mail, to the person believed responsible, to the owner of the property, or to both — so a product decision made by whoever is holding the wand can arrive addressed to the building.

Debris off first — and what the code does when that is not feasible

Section 26-160(b) makes it unlawful to wash any public or private street, building, sidewalk or parking area unless all visible debris and sediments have been removed beforehand. That is the sequence the code sets for anyone washing here: visible debris and sediment come off before the water does. The sentence after it decides whether we should be on your site at all. Where that removal is not feasible, as determined by the public works director, the surface may only be washed with the director's written approval — approval which, the code says, may include requirements to clean the affected drainage pipelines or to provide treatment of wash water. We are not equipped to treat wash water and we do not collect it and haul it away. So a service court where removal cannot lift the grease may be a site that needs a contractor set up to treat wash water, and that is not us — whether removal is infeasible there is the director's determination and not ours. The Brick Industry Association's guidance on cleaning brickwork says the same of runoff and then points straight back at the city: among the things it lists before cleaning is controlling or treating runoff as the local jurisdiction requires. Here the first thing the jurisdiction asks, in a sentence adopted in 1999, is that the visible debris and sediments come off first; what it may ask when that fails is the part we have said is beyond us.

Common questions

Do we need a permit from the city before you wash the building?: Not under the sections of the code we have read. The one place approval enters is section 26-160(b), where the public works director determines that removing visible debris and sediment is not feasible; then the surface may only be washed with the director's written approval.
We have been given seventy-two hours to abate graffiti. What can you do inside that?: We get back to you within four hours of your request — a response promise, not a turnaround guarantee. What we can say in advance is what a deadline does not change: the surface still decides what may be put on it, and the seventy-two hours in section 12-17 do not lift that limit. Estimates are free. Tell us the deadline and what is on the wall when you get in touch.
Our maintenance crew degreases the service court and hoses it down. Does that matter here?: Worth knowing before we quote. Degreasers and solvents are named in section 26-160(a) among the polluting matter that may not be discharged to any stormwater system in the city, and section 26-161 lets the director address a cease-and-desist to the person believed responsible, to the property owner, or to both. Note as well who section 26-160(b) is written about: it names no contractor at all, only the washing of any public or private street, building, sidewalk or parking area, so wherever it reaches your site the debris-first sequence is not something that starts when our truck arrives. Tell us what has been used on that slab and how recently.

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