Othello, King County
Othello is the youngest part of South Seattle we serve, and that shapes how we approach a chimney or fireplace there. Much of the ground around Othello station was rebuilt between 1996 and 2005, and newer apartment blocks followed after the light rail opened. Older houses stand on the streets around it. Because no record lists what kind of flue or firebox an Othello home has, we start each visit by finding out, and this page keeps to what the history and the census can actually show.
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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 Othello home — we'll point you to the right fix.
What we do
The same crew, the same written quote — for Othello 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 — Othello, Seattle. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
The neighborhood takes its name from South Othello Street and from the light rail stop on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South, between South Othello and South Myrtle streets, whose trains began running on July 18, 2009. A block east of the platform, the 7.4-acre Othello Playground already counts as Brighton. West of the station, on the south flank of Beacon Hill, the Seattle Housing Authority's NewHolly community covers more than 100 acres at 3815 South Othello Street. Othello lies within Seattle, so a chimney permit is the business of the city's construction department, SDCI, while the air rules that decide when a wood fire may burn come from Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.
In 1943 Holly Park was finished: 900 units, the second-largest housing project in Seattle at the time, built for people working in the war plants. The city's Beacon Hill context statement explains the location: south Beacon Hill sat close to Boeing and the other defense factories down in the Duwamish Valley. The project was paid for with Lanham Act money, and in 1953 the Seattle Housing Authority took title from the federal government without paying for it and turned it into low-income family housing. The authority opened its first senior center there in 1962.
HistoryLink notes that this garden-city housing went up in a hurry, with an expected useful life of about 40 years, and that by 1970 it was showing poor design and hard upkeep. A federal modernization program put Holly Park near the front of the renovation line in the 1970s. In 1995 the housing authority chose to rebuild it as a mixed-income neighborhood with HOPE VI funding; work began in 1996 and the last phase was finished in 2005. Wikipedia records that NewHolly was called the first new neighborhood in Seattle in 50 years.
Today the housing authority's own listing at NewHolly counts 620 of its units, sized from 574 to 1,738 square feet, spread among detached houses, townhomes and low buildings of up to four floors. Close to the platform rose a 351-unit apartment block in 2011, Wikipedia notes, and 108 more apartments that opened in July 2017. The census shows the same shift for the whole 98118 ZIP area: 11.3 percent of its units were built from 2000 to 2009, 13.0 percent from 2010 to 2019 and 3.8 percent since 2020.
Homes that young were put up under modern codes, and many of them have never had a sweep or a vent check. In attached and stacked units, the laundry can sit far from any exterior wall, so its duct is long, and a fireplace may exhaust sideways rather than up through the roof. We confirm what is in your unit before quoting anything, and in a building with a manager or an association we work only on the parts that belong to you.
Othello does not fit the usual postwar story of the Rainier Valley. HistoryLink's essay on ZIP code 98118 ties a wave of 1950s and 1960s building to the valley as a whole, and the census bears it out for the ZIP area: 26.3 percent of its units date from 1950 through 1969. Here, though, the oldest large group of homes was the 1943 war housing of Holly Park, and nearly all of it was replaced in the NewHolly rebuild that ran from 1996 to 2005.
No record says what a given Othello home vents, and the possibilities are wide: a vent through a side wall, a factory-built metal flue boxed into a chase, or a masonry flue shared by a furnace, a water heater or an insert added long after the house went up. On every visit we list each appliance connected to a flue or vent, compare its outlet with the size of the passage it exhausts into, and check the cap and termination. A liner is recommended only when that survey shows a mismatch or damage, never because of the address alone.
Puget Sound Clean Air Agency keeps a running count of the air in King County. Its 2024 summary records 257 good days, 105 moderate ones and 4 rated unhealthy for sensitive groups. Fine particles stayed under the federal standard apart from the Fourth of July fireworks, yet on as many as 4 winter days wood smoke pushed them past the agency's own, tighter health goal. The Western Regional Climate Center explains why winter is the risk: on clear, calm days a temperature inversion holds smoke down over the lowlands.
Under Stage 1, the wood fire goes out in open hearths, and in stoves and inserts that never earned certification. Stage 2 can be called straight away if particle levels jump, and it takes in the certified wood appliances too, pellet models included. Neither stage names gas units. Separately from any ban, Washington sets a 20 percent ceiling on how opaque chimney smoke may look, and six minutes above it in any hour breaks the rule, which is one more reason to burn only dry, seasoned wood when burning is allowed. The agency posts ban status online and offers alerts.
The grid we quote from for Othello homes — the $99 inspection comes first, the written quote before any work.
| Service | Price in Othello | 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 Othello. 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.
A sealed gas unit still has a pilot or igniter, a glass panel with a gasket, and a vent cap outside that birds and leaves can block. A yearly check confirms the burner lights cleanly and the exhaust leaves the house. We look at what your unit actually has before suggesting any work.
Seattle publishes two different limits for permit-free chimney repair: $4,000 under Director's Rule 5-2004, and $6,000 for minor repairs in the city's 2021 residential code (R105.2). Neither source settles which one SDCI applies to a given job, so we ask SDCI before any rebuild is scheduled.
Yes, for the vent, duct or fireplace serving your own unit. Shared roofs, shared shafts and common equipment belong to the building, so the owner or manager has to approve any work on them.
$99 plus tax per chimney or appliance system inspected. Those $99 are later taken off the written quote you approve.
Choose a genuine opening on the crew's calendar. We inspect, quote in writing, and hand over a photo record of every repair.
