Hillman City, King County
Masonry repair on a Hillman City chimney starts at $475. For that floor price you typically get one cracked crown made sound again, or a patch of eroded joints raked and refilled. New mortar around all four sides of the stack, or a crown torn off and cast fresh so it sheds rain past the brick, costs more. We price from what we measure on the roof, never from a photo sent by text.
Typical investment
From $475
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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.
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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Flue-by-flue measurements, or the whole crown for a multi-flue hood
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Cleaning and testing of the burner, pilot assembly and igniter
Learn moreRanges shown for orientation — the exact figure is written up on-site, after the inspection.
Masonry is part of how this neighborhood announces itself. The city's commercial-district survey names the Keefe Building, at 5619 Rainier Avenue South with its corner entrance, as the gateway to historic Hillman City. A little north of it, Seattle's list of unreinforced masonry buildings for the Columbia City reporting area counts 27 brick buildings with addresses reaching the 5600 block of Rainier. Those are commercial buildings, not houses. On the residential blocks between Dawson and Graham streets, no source records what the chimneys are made of, so every job starts by reading the brick and the joints in front of us.
Every masonry repair (crown / repointing) we do in Hillman City includes:
Smoke coming back into the room, or a smell that won't go? Book the inspection first.
Book nowMortar fails here mostly through water and cold working together. According to the Western Regional Climate Center, lowland Puget Sound sees no frost only between the end of April and the middle of October. Outside that window, which is half the calendar, a joint soaked by an afternoon shower may be frozen by dawn. Each cycle opens a crack a little wider. A crown that was poured flat, or with no drip edge, holds water on top of the stack and feeds that cycle from above.
Most mortar jobs on a house in this neighborhood need no city permit. On its remodel page, SDCI puts chimney repointing in the same no-permit group as painting and reroofing, on the condition that no structural element is altered. The residential code says the same at R105.2, where chimney repointing appears among exempt jobs.
The picture changes once bricks have to come out and go back in. Seattle's 2004 chimney rule asks that any unreinforced brick kept during a repair be looked over and tuckpointed wherever it has weathered, and it limits rebuilding in kind to the last two feet at the top; deeper work goes back up with reinforcement. Where a crown is recast, the code wants the top of the masonry finished in stone, metal or concrete, pitched so rain runs off, lipped to drip clear of the brick, and parted from the flue tile by a sealed joint. If a quote moves from repointing into rebuilding, we say so in writing and explain what SDCI will ask for.
Each face is checked for joint depth, brick condition and crown slope, and photographed for your file.
Loose joints are cut back until the tool meets firm material, so new mortar bonds to something solid.
Mortar goes in with a pointing trowel and is struck to shape; where the crown cracked through, a new one is cast with fall and an overhang.
Tarps stay over the new joints until they harden, then the photo set of all four faces goes out by email.
What this work is quoted at for Hillman City homes — the exact figure comes from the $99 on-site inspection, credited toward the work.
| Service | Price in Hillman City | What that covers |
|---|---|---|
| Masonry Repair (Crown / Repointing) | From $475 | Crown work, repointing and tuckpointing by surface area |
| 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 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.
Hillman City is a Rainier Valley neighborhood of Seattle platted in 1888 and renamed by its developer in 1902, with homes on streets laid out in the electric-railway era, in a ZIP code area (98118) where 18 percent of the housing predates 1940.
Hillman CityKing County, WA · 47.551, -122.287
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.
For a chimney, the useful part is the same: old joints cut out, new mortar packed in. Tuckpointing simply finishes the joint with a second, thin line in another color, which matters on a storefront more than on a stack.
Late spring through early fall, outside the frost window. We schedule winter jobs around dry spells and cover fresh mortar while it sets.
Yes. A Hillman City masonry visit is $99 plus tax, which then comes out of the price if you book the work we quote.
A $99 on-site inspection, a written quote before any work, and photos of every item we touch.
