Rainier Beach, King County
Chimney work in Rainier Beach comes down to three local facts: a neighborhood on the lake at the far southeast corner of Seattle, rain that settles in each October and lasts into spring, and homes from more than a hundred years of building. We start every job by looking, because no record tells us what a given house has on its roof. Each chimney visit costs $99 plus tax, later deducted from a quote you accept.
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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 Rainier Beach home — we'll point you to the right fix.
What we do
The same crew, the same written quote — for Rainier Beach 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 — Rainier Beach, Seattle. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Rainier Beach is the last neighborhood inside the city limits at the southern end of the lake, HistoryLink notes, and the southernmost name in Wikipedia's north-to-south list of Rainier Valley neighborhoods. It came into Seattle with the 1907 annexation that also brought in Columbia City, Hillman City and Brighton. Two arterials, Rainier Avenue South and MLK Jr. Way South, run through it, and Kubota Garden is inside its limits. For chimney purposes it is a place of detached houses, lake weather and a long building history, and those are the three things this page covers.
Joseph Dunlap reached this shore in September 1869, according to HistoryLink. A log-cabin schoolhouse followed in 1898, and the Dunlap family gave land for a school in 1904. Clarence D. Hillman, the developer who also created Hillman City, began building here in 1896, called the place Atlantic City, and in 1905 purchased the Dunlap land, which he laid out as the Atlantic City Addition. His career ended in 1912 with a prison sentence for mail fraud.
Transport set the pace of growth. The electric railway reached Rainier Beach in 1894; HistoryLink records a two-hour-and-ten-minute ride into Seattle that cost outsiders 10 cents and locals 5. Trolley service ended in 1937, and once the floating bridge opened at Mount Baker in 1940 the south end of the city turned to cars and buses.
Wikipedia dates Emerson School to 1909, where Seattle's first public kindergarten opened in 1914, and Firehouse No. 33 to 1914. Kubota Garden began in 1927, when Fujitaro Kubota bought five acres of logged-off swampland; it has grown to a 20-acre public garden, with 4.5 acres named a historical landmark in 1981 and city ownership since 1987.
Postwar Rainier Beach is marked by Rainier Beach Junior-Senior High School, completed in 1960, HistoryLink says, and by a 1997 public-private partnership that transformed much of the neighborhood's housing. Four buildings in Rainier Beach appear on Seattle's list of unreinforced masonry buildings, three of them in the critical-risk category the city uses for schools and emergency facilities; the list concerns public and commercial buildings, not houses.
Housing figures exist only for the whole 98118 ZIP area, which HistoryLink describes as running up the valley from Rainier Beach and which also takes in Columbia City, Hillman City and Seward Park. That ZIP holds 20,459 housing units in the 2020–2024 survey, 18.1 percent of them from 1939 or earlier, 8.0 percent in the 1940s, 13.8 percent in the 1950s and 12.5 percent in the 1960s, with a median year of 1968. Detached single-family houses make up 59.2 percent of units, far above Seattle's 36.8 percent.
What none of these figures records is the chimney. No public count separates brick stacks here from prefabricated fireboxes or sealed gas units, and wood is the main heat for only about 29 households in the whole ZIP area. Fireplaces lit now and then do not show up in that count. So we identify the system at the visit, with a light and a camera, and never from the address.
For an old brick chimney, Seattle applies Director's Rule 5-2004, adopted after the Nisqually quake. Relaying the top two feet as they were is allowed; anything more needs reinforcing, bracing or a listed metal chimney. That rule sets a 4,000-dollar line below which no permit is needed, the city's 2021 residential code sets 6,000 dollars for minor repairs over six months, and SDCI tells you which line governs your job.
Burning is regulated regionally. In King County, Puget Sound Clean Air Agency is the body that orders a burn ban. Its first stage shuts fireplaces, plus uncertified wood stoves and inserts; stage two ends wood and pellet fires of every kind, with an exception only for homes the agency has exempted. Current status appears online and on a recorded line.
Rainier Beach's waterfront is younger than its streets. Opening the Ship Canal in 1917 dropped the lake by roughly nine feet, pushing this shoreline out, as HistoryLink and Wikipedia both note. The bathing beaches were developed in 1934 with Works Progress Administration help, and the park once called Atlantic City Park is now Beer Sheva Park. Much earlier, according to HistoryLink, Coast Salish people wintered at Pritchard Island, now within the neighborhood.
For a chimney, the lake means weather from one direction. In WeatherSpark's Seattle figures, southerly wind prevails for about 9.5 months of every year, and a south face takes the brunt of wind-driven rain. Whether gusts are stronger on the waterfront than a few blocks inland has not been measured in any source we found, so we do not claim it; we check every face of a stack and fasten every cap as if it were exposed.
Moss is a given on Northwest roofs, Oregon State University Extension says, and it grows where shade and rain meet. It does not eat shingles, but it can lift them and let water in, and around a chimney it lodges in mortar joints, on the crown and in the cap screen. Sunny breaks are scarce here in winter (the Western Regional Climate Center tallies 4 to 8 clear or partly cloudy days per month), so what lands on a roof in November tends to stay wet until spring.
OSU's advice is to clean before treating and to change the conditions, usually by letting more sun reach the roof, since cleaning alone does not stop regrowth. On a chimney we remove moss and litter by hand before judging the masonry under it, and on shaded lots we suggest a look at the top each fall.
The grid we quote from for Rainier Beach homes — the $99 inspection comes first, the written quote before any work.
| Service | Price in Rainier Beach | 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 Rainier Beach. 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, from the blocks along the lake to the side streets off Rainier Avenue South and MLK Way, and around Kubota Garden.
Each chimney inspected is $99 plus tax, and the sum is credited on the written quote when you approve it.
Age alone does not say. Houses in the 98118 area span more than a century, and two of the same age can have very different chimneys. The camera answers that question.
Late summer suits exterior work; book flue cleaning ahead of the season's first fire. Indoor work such as a gas fireplace service can be booked any time.
Choose a genuine opening on the crew's calendar. We inspect, quote in writing, and hand over a photo record of every repair.
