Hillman City, King County
Chimney jobs in Hillman City rarely look alike from one block to the next. The neighborhood was laid out in 1888, filled in along a streetcar line, then kept building for another hundred years, so a stack from the railway era can stand two doors from a vent pipe on a house finished last decade. We start every job the same way: an on-site visit at $99 plus tax per chimney, with photos and a written quote, and that $99 is taken off the quote when you approve it.
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Book your $99 inspection
$99 plus tax, deducted when you approve the repair
Not sure where to start
Pick what you're seeing at your Hillman City home — we'll point you to the right fix.
What we do
The same crew, the same written quote — for Hillman City homes.
Full-height brushing with a head chosen for clay tile or metal liner
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Level 1: every reachable component checked, with a Level 2 camera run added if something stays unclear
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Video survey and flue measurements taken before ordering anything
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Photo assessment sorting surface wear from structural failure
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Flue-by-flue measurements, or the whole crown for a multi-flue hood
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Starting photos: crown on top, then each side of the stack
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A pre-treatment check of brick, joints and crown
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Leak path followed from the stain up to the roof, by way of the attic if we can get in
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Cleaning and testing of the burner, pilot assembly and igniter
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Video grading of the deposit and where it sits in the flue
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The entire duct run brushed with rotary heads and flushed with air
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Each supply and return branch agitated with the system under suction
Learn moreRanges shown for orientation — the exact figure is written up on-site, after the inspection.
Service-area map — Hillman City, Seattle. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Hillman City sits in the Rainier Valley between South Dawson Street to the north and South Graham Street to the south, with Martin Luther King Jr. Way South on its west side and 48th Avenue South on its east, as Wikipedia draws it. The ground was first homesteaded on July 9, 1863. J.W. Edwards platted it in 1888 as Sunnyside, cut into five-acre tracts, and Clarence D. Hillman bought the development in 1902 and gave it his name, according to HistoryLink. Growth followed the Rainier Valley electric railway through the 1890s, and Seattle annexed the area in January 1907. Today light rail runs along Martin Luther King Jr. Way, with stations at Columbia City to the north and Othello to the south.
Early Hillman City did not depend entirely on its neighbors. Wikipedia lists a real estate office, a grocery, a butcher, a hardware store, a bakery, a tile factory and a movie theater in the first business district, and for a time an opera house and a public fountain at Rainier and Orcas. By 1900, the city's survey of commercial districts says, Columbia City had become the valley's main shopping center and served Hillman as well as Brighton and Rainier Beach.
The same survey points to one building as the gateway to historic Hillman City: the Keefe Building, number 5619 on Rainier Avenue South, recognizable by its entrance cut into the corner. Clarence Hillman did not stop at one plat, either; in 1905 he laid out the Atlantic City Addition in what is now Rainier Beach. Hillman City was one of a string of communities platted in the electric-railway years, along with Atlantic City, Lake View and Dunlap.
Hillman City has no historic context statement of its own, so the best numbers come from the census for ZIP area 98118. HistoryLink calls that zone a neighborhood of nations, about six square miles running down to Rainier Beach, and places Hillman City toward the grittier end of a range that climbs to lakeside Seward Park. Of its 20,459 homes, 18.1% were built in 1939 or earlier, 26.3% between 1950 and 1969, and more than a quarter since 2000; the median year is 1968. HistoryLink links the 1960s growth to a postwar building boom in the valley and to the city's open housing ordinance of 1968.
For chimney work, that spread is the whole story. The same census tables show most homes heating with electricity or gas and only about 29 households burning wood as their main fuel, so the typical call here concerns a fireplace used for comfort, a gas appliance venting through an old flue, or a stack nobody has looked at in years. We do not guess which from the address; we look.
Since annexation, Hillman City has built and repaired under Seattle's codes, and for chimneys the key text is Director's Rule 5-2004, which dates from the last month of 2004. Its opening recalls the 2001 Nisqually earthquake, when many old brick chimneys cracked and became falling hazards. Ever since, a damaged unreinforced chimney in the city has had four ways out: steel reinforcement, external bracing, removal, or a listed factory-built chimney in its place.
Ask whether a job needs a permit and you meet two published thresholds. The 2004 rule frees chimney jobs billed to the owner below $4,000, provided the work still follows its methods. The city's 2021 residential code sets its own bar in R105.2: minor repair or alteration totaling no more than $6,000 over a half-year, with no load-bearing part disturbed. They belong to different code generations, and SDCI is the office that says which one governs a particular quote. Chimney repointing with nothing structural altered is listed as permit-free by SDCI and by that same 2021 code. A new wood stove takes a separate furnace permit, per SDCI's Tip 303A, and new gas piping takes its own permit apart from the mechanical one.
The grid we quote from for Hillman City homes — the $99 inspection comes first, the written quote before any work.
| Service | Price in Hillman City | What that covers |
|---|---|---|
| Chimney Sweep | $189–$449 | Full flue swept, Level 1 inspection included |
| Chimney Inspection | $99 plus tax | Level 1 visual; Level 2 adds a full camera scan |
| Chimney Relining | From $1,900 | Full-length stainless liner, sized to the appliance |
| Chimney Repair | From $425 | Masonry repair — brick and mortar, scoped after diagnosis |
| Chimney Cap Installation | $235–$850 | Stainless cap fitted; multi-flue and custom at the top |
| Masonry Repair (Crown / Repointing) | From $475 | Crown work, repointing and tuckpointing by surface area |
| Chimney Waterproofing | $285–$795 | Breathable sealer — reapplied every 3–5 years in this climate |
| Chimney Flashing Repair | $325–$1,500 | Reseal at the low end, full flashing replacement at the high |
| Gas Fireplace Service | $189–$425 | Annual service and tune-up; repairs quoted after diagnosis |
| Creosote Removal | From $245 | Priced by creosote stage — glazed stage 3 is the heavy end |
| Dryer Vent Cleaning | $105–$259 | Full run cleaned; roof or upper-floor terminations at the top |
| Air Duct Cleaning | From $525 | Whole HVAC system — trunks, branches and every register |
Ranges are what these jobs are quoted at in Hillman City. The exact figure is set on site after a $99 inspection (credited toward the job if you go ahead), and you approve it before any work starts.
Before and after
Illustrations of what each repair changes on a typical chimney — not photos of a specific job.
Before
After
Before
After
Before
After
Four steps, each one on paper — so you always know what happens next.
Choose a genuine opening on the crew's calendar. Confirmation is immediate.
Liner, crown, cap, flashing and masonry examined in order — each finding photographed.
One document, plain numbers, covering only the work your chimney genuinely needs.
The repair is completed, then handed over with before-and-after photos of every item.
If it falls between South Dawson and South Graham streets and between Martin Luther King Jr. Way South and 48th Avenue South, yes. Just outside those lines, we still serve you: the neighboring South Seattle neighborhoods are on the same route.
Each chimney we inspect at a Hillman City home is $99 plus tax, photos included. Approve the written quote that comes after and it shrinks by those $99.
With an inspection before the first fire. On a house of any age we check the flue, the damper, the masonry above the roof and anything that vents into the chimney, and we tell you what Seattle's rules would require if repairs are needed.
Yes. Factory-built fireplaces, metal flues and gas units installed in the last twenty years need care as well, and they follow their own listings and manuals.
Choose a genuine opening on the crew's calendar. We inspect, quote in writing, and hand over a photo record of every repair.
