Chimney and fireplace service in Seattle and Shoreline

Seattle's housing is old by West Coast standards. The Census Bureau's 2024 survey counts 22.8 percent of the city's homes as built in 1939 or earlier, about twice the national share, and another 15.6 percent from 1940 to 1959. That is the Craftsman bungalow, the Seattle Box and the brick Tudor, nearly all built with a masonry chimney. Shoreline, just north of the city line, is mostly post-war: 30 percent of its homes went up between 1940 and 1959, many of them ramblers with one brick fireplace.

Most of these fireplaces are no longer the heat source. About 61 percent of Seattle homes heat mainly with electricity and 0.2 percent with wood, so the fireplace is for evenings, and the chimney often vents an old oil or gas furnace too. Seattle still has 2.9 percent of homes on fuel oil and Shoreline 4.1 percent, which leaves plenty of unlined or abandoned flues. At the free inspection we check every flue from the roof and from inside and tell you what each one is doing.

Earthquakes and Seattle's chimney repair rule

After the Nisqually earthquake of February 28, 2001, a University of Washington and USGS team surveyed about 60,000 chimneys between Bremerton and Mercer Island and found the damage concentrated in West Seattle, along the Seattle Fault. FEMA calls unreinforced masonry chimneys extremely vulnerable to earthquakes. Seattle answered with Director's Rule 5-2004: repairs must use reinforced masonry or a listed metal chimney, though the top 2 feet may be rebuilt as it was, and work under $4,000 needs no permit but must still follow the rule.

Seattle also has eight historic districts, including the residential Harvard-Belmont district on Capitol Hill. There, any change to a building's exterior needs a Certificate of Approval, even work that would not need a permit. We tell you at the inspection if your job falls under either rule, and we recommend confirming the current requirements with SDCI before larger work.

Rain, moss and the top of the chimney

NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normals put Sea-Tac at about 39 inches of rain over roughly 156 days a year. Snow is rare; wet weather that lasts for months is the problem. Water gets in through a cracked crown, a missing cap or worn flashing, and moss holds it against the brick. On century-old brick we repoint with a soft mortar that matches, because the National Park Service warns that mortar harder than the brick leads to cracking and spalling. Typical ranges: crown $600 to $2,200, flashing $300 to $1,800, repointing $500 to $2,500.