Rainier Beach, King County
A new chimney cap in Rainier Beach runs $235 to $850 installed. A stock stainless cap on one flue that we can reach from the roof is the $235 end. A lid that covers two or three flues, one built to measure for an odd crown, or a stack that needs staging to reach is what climbs toward $850. Sizes are taken on the roof before anything is ordered.
Typical investment
$235–$850
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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.
Level 1: every reachable component checked, with a Level 2 camera run added if something stays unclear
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Full-height brushing with a head chosen for clay tile or metal liner
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Photo assessment sorting surface wear from structural failure
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Video survey and flue measurements taken before ordering anything
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Cleaning and testing of the burner, pilot assembly and igniter
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Starting photos: crown on top, then each side of the stack
Learn moreRanges shown for orientation — the exact figure is written up on-site, after the inspection.
Annual rain and snow in the Puget Sound lowlands, Seattle among them, total 32 to 35 inches by the Western Regional Climate Center's figures. Do the arithmetic on a common 8-by-12-inch flue opening and an uncapped chimney swallows something like 14 gallons of rain a year, every drop of it landing on the damper, the smoke shelf and the mortar joints of the flue. For what it costs, nothing else on the stack shields as much: tile, damper and mortar all sit under it. A missing or bent lid therefore goes to the top of any list we hand you.
HistoryLink places Rainier Beach in Seattle's southeast corner, on the shoreline just inside the city limits. Storms reach it the way they reach the rest of the city: the city's emergency managers describe the region's fiercest windstorms as 60 to 70 miles an hour sustained, gusting near 90, with structural harm beginning around 32.
A cap is the highest object on most roofs and takes air from every side at once. Nobody has published a comparison of gusts on the waterfront and a few blocks inland, so we make no claim about it. Instead every cap we install is mechanically fastened, and we pull on it by hand before leaving the roof. New construction, the same office notes, must be designed for 85-mile-an-hour gusts lasting three seconds; a friction-fit lid is not.
Every chimney cap installation we do in Rainier Beach includes:
Smoke coming back into the room, or a smell that won't go? Book the inspection first.
Book nowSeattle's 2021 Residential Code wants the masonry top of a chimney finished in concrete, metal or stone; it has to fall toward its edges, throw water past the brick with a drip, and be parted from the flue tile by a bond break filled with caulk. A metal rain cap sits on top of that. When the cap carries a spark screen, section R1003.9.2 sizes it: the free opening must be no less than four times the flue's outlet area, and the mesh holes are set so a half-inch ball cannot pass. One check comes before any of this. The city's chimney rule warns that a flue may still be venting a gas water heater or furnace, so we confirm what is connected below before a damper cap or a closed top goes on.
Outside dimensions of each flue, height of the tile above the crown, and the state of the crown itself, all noted with photos.
Single-flue or multi-flue, with or without damper, chosen for the fuel and for enough screen height to meet the open-area rule.
Stainless screws bite into the tile, or anchors go into the crown. A cap held on only by friction is not one we leave on a roof.
A small smoke test confirms the flue still draws, and you get the roof photos the same day.
What this work is quoted at for Rainier Beach homes — the exact figure comes from the $99 on-site inspection, credited toward the work.
| Service | Price in Rainier Beach | What that covers |
|---|---|---|
| Chimney Cap Installation | $235–$850 | Stainless cap fitted; multi-flue and custom at the top |
| 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 |
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.
Winter in the Puget Sound lowlands brings somewhere between four and eight clear or partly sunny days a month, by the count of the Western Regional Climate Center. A cap screen that collects needles in October therefore spends months wet, and wet litter is what moss settles into. Once the mesh fills, the open area the code protects shrinks and the fire starts to smoke.
OSU Extension's plant pathologist cautions that scrubbing a roof will not keep moss from returning unless the conditions that grew it change, which in practice means more sun on the shingles. The same holds for a cap. We choose lids whose top overhangs the screen so falling debris slides past, and on heavily shaded lots we suggest a quick look at the screen every fall.
Rainier Beach is a neighborhood in the southeast corner of Seattle, just inside the city limits, on the lakeshore, with homes in a ZIP code area (98118) where roughly one unit in four was built between 1950 and 1969.
Rainier BeachKing County, WA · 47.523, -122.262
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.
Among other Seattle companies, Mad Hatter Chimney Sweep posts $200 to $350 for fitting a single ordinary lid on one flue (page checked October 4, 2026). We quote our own job, not theirs, and lids spanning several flues cost more with anyone.
Stainless. The same Seattle company describes galvanized steel as a 5-to-10-year choice in a wet climate, and we would rather not climb back up to replace it.
Not by itself. If the crown is cracked or the tile is broken we will show you before fitting the lid, and a full inspection is available at $99 plus tax, credited to the work if you approve our quote.
A $99 on-site inspection, a written quote before any work, and photos of every item we touch.
