Marietta water is soft at 31.2 to 33.4 mg/L, but late March and April bring an extreme pine-pollen wave, and Georgia red clay leaves iron-oxide stains.
Marietta's water from the county authority is soft, 31.2 to 33.4 mg/L across its two plants, so mineral work is minimal and a filtered rinse adds little. Pollen is the event of the year: metro Atlanta's pine wave peaks from late March into April, and red clay splash leaves iron-oxide stains on lower panes. May, September and October are the months to book, and a single-story exterior runs $260 to $440, while the aerospace plants add badging and weeks of lead time to commercial work.
At around 32 mg/L there is very little dissolved mineral to deposit, so the supply is close to neutral in the result and a softener is not what this market needs. What does reach the glass here is organic and seasonal, which means the failure mode is a smeared pollen film rather than a mineral spot — a different problem needing a different chemistry.
Figures by plant, as reported.
| Hardness | 31.2–33.4 mg/L as CaCO₃ 1.82 to 1.95 grains per gallon in the authority's own units — soft, as published by Marietta Board of Lights and Water (supplied by the Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority). |
|---|---|
| pH | 7.5–7.6 |
| Alkalinity | 22–25.5 mg/L as CaCO₃ |
| Sodium | 4.2–10 mg/L |
| Chloride | 6.8–17 mg/L |
| Disinfectant | free chlorine |
| Source and treatment | Lake Allatoona and the Chattahoochee River, with Hickory Log Creek Reservoir as drought contingency; CCMWA withdraws about 43 MGD from Allatoona · Conventional treatment with sodium hypochlorite disinfection, and lime dosed to raise pH for corrosion control · No softening step. |
Not in the report: corrosion index, iron, manganese and total dissolved solids.
SOURCE · Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority annual water quality information, paired per-plant values for the Hugh A. Wyckoff and James E. Quarles facilities (ccmwa.org); CCMWA is the named treatment authority supplying the Marietta Board of Lights and Water retail system · How we source these numbers
Pollen sets the interval and it sets it hard. The late-March and April wave is heavy enough that work scheduled inside it will be undone within days, so the sensible pattern is to wait it out and reset afterwards. Beyond that, canopy density and proximity to bare clay decide frequency far more than anything in the water does, and ice storms override the schedule entirely when they come.
GEORGIA SEASON BY SEASON →CCMWA publishes hardness at 31.2 and 33.4 mg/L across its two plants — 1.82 and 1.95 grains, soft — sampled every two weeks. The record carried 90. Mineral work is minimal and the filtered-rinse upsell is weak. The real seasonal event is pollen: metro Atlanta's spring counts are among the highest measured anywhere, and pine pollen worked dry smears rather than lifts. The Lockheed and Dobbins footprint is the biggest account in Cobb and the slowest to get into.
The water arrives through the Marietta Board of Lights and Water, which retails it, but it is treated by the Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority, which is the wholesaler. The authority publishes hardness at 31.2 and 33.4 mg/L — 1.82 and 1.95 grains per gallon — one figure for each of its two plants, with calcium at 9.7 and 10.7 and alkalinity at 22.0 and 25.5.
CCMWA samples hardness every two weeks and posts the lab data rather than only summarising it annually. That is a more frequent disclosure than most utilities in this trade will ever offer, and it means the figure here is a running measurement rather than a single yearly snapshot.
Two sources feed two plants: Lake Allatoona through the Wyckoff plant and the Chattahoochee River through the Quarles plant, with Hickory Log Creek Reservoir held as a drought-contingency store. The two published figures differ by only about two milligrams per litre, so unlike most two-plant systems the address does not change the method here.
Treatment is oxidation, coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation and filtration, disinfected with sodium hypochlorite for a free chlorine residual, with lime added to raise pH for corrosion control. Free chlorine rather than chloramine is worth knowing: it is more reactive and more volatile than the chloramine most large systems run, which is a difference a crew will smell before it measures.
Atlanta-metro pine pollen is in a category of its own. Late March and April bring counts among the highest recorded anywhere in the country, laying a visible yellow film over every surface within days. It is coarse, it smears when worked dry, and the only workable approach is presoak and flood.
Georgia red clay is iron-rich, and rain splatter off beds and unpaved edges leaves ferrous staining on lower panes and sills. Left to cycle wet and dry a few times it bonds to the glass and needs an acid or oxalic step rather than detergent.
The Lockheed plant and the adjoining air reserve base dominate the commercial picture. It is a very large aerospace manufacturing footprint with the access controls to match — badging, escort and scheduling weeks out — so the largest account in the county is also the slowest to enter and should be priced that way.
Marietta Square survived the Civil War largely intact, which left an antebellum and Victorian building stock that is unusual for metro Atlanta. Original wavy glass and soft putty around the Square and along Whitlock make conservation pacing routine rather than a specialism.
Georgia ice storms are infrequent but severe when they arrive, and the metro's dense tree canopy makes the aftermath a debris event. Branch strike, sap and bark residue land across whole neighbourhoods at once, and the work arrives as a spike rather than a season.
Access administration is the distinctive driver in Marietta — the aerospace footprint means badging, escort and lead times measured in weeks, and the county's biggest account is priced on the cost of getting through the gate rather than on pane count. Heritage pacing around the Square is the second. Pollen affects frequency rather than rate, and the water affects neither.
Soft water and accessible East Marietta glazing make a homeowner result realistic, with one caveat that is specific to this pollen load: working it dry grinds a coarse abrasive across the glass, and the instinct to wipe first is how surfaces get scratched here. Presoak and flood. What genuinely does not transfer is the antebellum stock around the Square, where soft putty and original wavy glass need conservation pacing, and the Lockheed and Dobbins footprint, which is credentialed site work rather than a larger version of a normal job.
OPEN COST ESTIMATOR →2025 annual mean at the Fire Station #8 monitor, Fire Station #8, 1711 Marietta Blvd., Atlanta, Georgia, 30318, 19.5 km south-east of the city (EPA site 13-121-0039).
Largest air release: Bluescope Coated Products LLC, 1150 Marietta Industrial DR NE (fabricated metals), inside the city limits, 7,926 lb in 2024.
Marietta lets people irrigate outdoors daily, for planting and keeping up lawns, trees, shrubs and other plants, only between 4 p.m. and 10 a.m., with listed exemptions.
Marietta Code §6-8-4-020: water conservation ordinance · checked September 2026
Marietta's stormwater code prohibits throwing, draining or otherwise releasing illicit discharges, meaning any direct or indirect non-stormwater discharge, into its municipal separate storm sewer system.
Marietta Code §7-8-18-030: prohibitions · Marietta Code §7-8-18-020: definitions (illicit discharge) · checked September 2026
Marietta's historic preservation commission approves an application and issues a certificate of appropriateness unless it finds the proposed change in appearance would substantially harm the historic, architectural or cultural significance of the property.
Marietta Code §7-8-9-050: application for certificate of appropriateness · checked September 2026
Yellow film coats south- and west-facing windows across the metro. Functionally a thin organic coating, not a deposit — handle wet, never scrape dry. A single normal wash plus a strip-and-go rinse handles it on most stock. Heavy applications may need two passes.
Heavier where the canopy is older — Druid Hills, Inman Park, Athens, Decatur. Streakier than pine pollen, more likely to dry-bond if left through a hot afternoon.
Lower-sash problem on any house with exposed red clay within ten feet of the foundation. Sets within a week if not addressed. Acid-soluble — vinegar 1:1 with water handles fresh stains, citric or oxalic for set stains.
Marietta runs on Marietta Board of Lights and Water (supplied by the Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority) lake or reservoir surface water at a published 31.2–33.4 mg/L (CaCO₃) — 1.82 to 1.95 grains per gallon in the authority's own units — soft.
Residential window cleaning in Marietta typically runs $8–13 per pane or $260–440 for a standard single-story exterior. Access administration is the distinctive driver in Marietta — the aerospace footprint means badging, escort and lead times measured in weeks, and the county's biggest account is priced on the cost of getting through the gate rather than on pane count.
Marietta's drier, frost-free months are April and May and September and October, by NOAA's 1991–2020 normals for a station near Mableton, where July brings the most rain. The calendar on this page marks April (after the March 21 bloom), September (after smoke season) and October (before frost). Frost nights usually run from November 7 to March 27.
Usually yes: Marietta Board of Lights and Water (supplied by the Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority) publishes hardness of 31.2–33.4 mg/L, low enough that tap-rinsed glass tends to dry clean. It draws on Lake Allatoona and the Chattahoochee River, with Hickory Log Creek Reservoir as drought contingency.
In Marietta the dominant residue patterns include extreme pine pollen wave (late march–april) and iron-oxide staining from georgia red clay. Pollen sets the interval and it sets it hard. The late-March and April wave is heavy enough that work scheduled inside it will be undone within days, so the sensible pattern is to wait it out and reset afterwards.
Soft water and accessible East Marietta glazing make a homeowner result realistic, with one caveat that is specific to this pollen load: working it dry grinds a coarse abrasive across the glass, and the instinct to wipe first is how surfaces get scratched here. Presoak and flood.
The antebellum courthouse square, intact and commercially active. Storefront transoms, upper-storey original sash, and surviving pre-Civil-War structures around the perimeter. Whitlock Avenue and Church-Cherokee district have their own housing stock and glazing as well.
Just over the Georgia line