Mount Baker, King County
Chimney work in Mount Baker starts from the houses. Most of the older ones went up between 1905 and 1929 on a plat drawn to follow the ridge, many of them designed by the leading Seattle architects of the day, and almost all of them have changed heating more than once since. Add a hillside that falls toward the lake, ravines full of trees and a city rule written after the 2001 earthquake, and you have what a visit here usually involves: an old flue, a newer appliance, brick that dries slowly, and a careful match to what was built.
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$99 plus tax, deducted when you approve the repair
Not sure where to start
Pick what you're seeing at your Mount Baker home — we'll point you to the right fix.
What we do
The same crew, the same written quote — for Mount Baker 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 — Mount Baker, Seattle. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Mount Baker sits on the slope between Rainier Avenue South and the lake, at the north end of the stretch of Seattle we serve. Seattle annexed most of it, the land between Hanford and Atlantic streets, in 1883, and the ground south of Hanford in 1907. J.C. Hunter's Hunter Tract Improvement Company bought 130 acres in 1905 and filed the Mount Baker Park Addition plat in June 1907. Engineer George F. Cotterill laid it out; John Charles Olmsted reviewed the plan and suggested the deed restrictions that followed, which set a price floor on each house, pushed fronts 25 feet back and kept the addition residential. Mount Baker Park itself, 21.7 acres, was built in 1909 and grew after the lake was lowered in 1917. Franklin High School opened in 1912. In 1930 the plat's one permitted commercial building, a three-story Art Deco center by John Graham Sr., opened. ZIP 98144 covers more than Mount Baker, north Beacon Hill included; the census puts 31.3 percent of its homes before 1940, against a citywide 22.8 percent.
The city's context statement for Mount Baker describes more elaborate, more often architect-designed housing than anywhere else in this part of Seattle. Ellsworth Storey's Classical Revival house for the Phiscator estate at 3311 Cascadia Avenue, from 1907 and 1908, was one of the first in the plat. His Western Stick cottages, built from 1910 to 1915 near 36th Avenue South, now form a city landmark district. On Cascadia Avenue a Graham & Myers Tudor Revival house dates from 1909, and an Arthur Loveless design across the street from 1920.
Not all of it is grand. A few houses north of Atlantic Street, between 31st and 32nd Avenues South, predate 1900; one on South Day Street is dated 1897. In the 1920s, smaller vernacular houses filled parts of the York Addition, southwest of the main plat. The 1930s Depression added very little. For chimney work, that mix means no single repair detail fits the neighborhood: brick, mortar color and flashing have to match the specific house.
Old brick chimneys without steel inside fall under Director's Rule 5-2004 when they need work. Matching brick is fine for the highest two feet of the stack; below that, the work has to be reinforced masonry or a listed factory-built chimney. A stack rising more than three feet above the roof needs bracing at two points, one taller than twelve feet needs an engineer, and any repair that goes below the top of the smoke chamber means a full rebuild under permit. The rule waives a permit under $4,000, while the 2021 Seattle Residential Code's R105.2 sets its own bar at $6,000 of minor work per six-month span; SDCI is the office that settles which applies.
Burn bans are the other rule homeowners meet. A Stage 1 call from the Clean Air Agency silences Mount Baker's open hearths and its uncertified stoves; Stage 2 extends that silence to certified wood units as well. Once a ban is three hours old, the state rule (WAC 173-433-150) lets inspectors treat smoke they can see leaving your flue as proof on its face. Exemptions are only for homes without another adequate heat source, which the agency defines as a system able to hold 70 degrees in every lived-in room.
This hillside has moved before. In 1898 a slide wrecked mill workers' homes on the slope above the lake, in what is now Mount Baker, according to the city's context statement; HistoryLink describes some 75 acres sliding about 100 feet toward the water that year. The last sawmill left for Rainier Beach afterward. Nineteen years later the lake itself dropped, about nine feet, when the ship canal was completed, and Mount Baker Park grew onto the new ground.
We do not have a modern slide map by street, so we make no claim about any lot. What we do on this slope is document: every crack in a chimney gets a photo with a scale, and every stack's lean is noted, so a later visit can tell movement from age. The south and southwest faces, which take the wet-season wind, get the closest look.
OSU Extension says roof moss is unavoidable in the damp Northwest and depends on shade as much as rain; its plant pathologist adds that cleaning without changing the conditions only buys time. Mount Baker's wooded ravines are a textbook case. Around a chimney, moss grows on the shaded face and at the base, holds water against the brick and can lift the shingles beside the flashing.
Seattle's skies do not help: per WeatherSpark, clouds hide most or all of a January sky on 71 days in a hundred, and the shortest day under eight and a half hours. On every Mount Baker roof we note where moss has rooted near the chimney, clear it from the area we work on, and suggest whether pruning would let that face dry.
The grid we quote from for Mount Baker homes — the $99 inspection comes first, the written quote before any work.
| Service | Price in Mount Baker | 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 Mount Baker. 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.
Yes. Our Mount Baker coverage runs from the ridge-top streets of the old park plat down to the Rainier Avenue edge, York Addition included.
The district is listed on the National Register. We have not found a city rule that requires design approval for chimney repair inside it; the Storey cottages are a separate city landmark district, where approval questions go to the Department of Neighborhoods. Either way, we match brick and mortar to the original.
An inspection: $99 plus tax per stack, photos and written report included. Sign the repair quote it produces and that $99 is deducted.
If no one has looked inside since, yes. After that quake, FEMA visited 30,000 homes and found one chimney in three damaged, according to USGS; Seattle wrote its chimney rule in response.
Choose a genuine opening on the crew's calendar. We inspect, quote in writing, and hand over a photo record of every repair.
