Othello, King County
Masonry repair on an Othello chimney starts at $475. That opening price covers a small crown or a short stretch of joints. Repointing a full stack, rebuilding a crown with a proper overhang, or replacing many faces of spalled brick takes more labor and material, and the quote grows with it. We price by what the roof inspection shows, course by course.
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 Othello home — we'll point you to the right fix.
What we do
The same crew, the same written quote — for Othello 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.
Around Othello, a 2011 apartment block can share a street with a house half a century older. The 98118 ZIP area, which reaches Seward Park and Rainier Beach as well as Othello, has 59.2 percent of its housing in detached single-family houses, where the citywide figure is just 36.8 percent. If a detached house has a brick chimney, every face of it meets wind and rain. Mortar on a stack that has stood since the 1950s or 1960s has been through more than sixty wet winters, and the outside faces show it first.
Detached houses account for 59.2 percent of housing units in ZIP 98118, and about one in four of its homes dates from 1950 to 1969, Census figures show. That is a lot of freestanding houses of roughly the same age, scattered around the newer rebuild near Othello station. Where one of them has a brick chimney, it is not old by Seattle standards, yet its joints have now faced six decades of rain.
Seattle's chimney rule, Director's Rule 5-2004, adds a requirement many owners do not expect. Whenever part of an unreinforced masonry chimney is repaired, the masonry that stays in place has to be inspected for damage or deterioration and tuckpointed as needed. A repair of the top courses on a 1960s stack is therefore never only the top: we look at the rest, and if the joints below are failing, the quote says so and prices them.
Every masonry repair (crown / repointing) we do in Othello includes:
Smoke coming back into the room, or a smell that won't go? Book the inspection first.
Book nowLowland winters around Puget Sound hover near freezing. January nights in the lowlands bottom out between 28 and 32 degrees, by the Western Regional Climate Center's account, and frost stays away only from about late April until the middle of October. Joints that hold water through a long, cloudy winter, with four to eight clear days a month by the same center's count, then go through repeated freeze and thaw. That is how hairline cracks in a crown turn into open gaps and how sandy mortar washes out of the joints facing south. Masonry work here is mostly about getting water out and keeping it out.
Each face of the stack is checked and photographed, and the crown is tapped for hollow spots.
Weak mortar comes out to sound material, without widening the joint or chipping brick edges.
New mortar is packed and tooled; bricks that cannot be saved are cut out and swapped.
Where the crown has failed, a new one is formed to slope away from the flue and drip clear of the brick.
Mortar smears are cleaned off, and you receive photos with notes on any area to watch.
What this work is quoted at for Othello homes — the exact figure comes from the $99 on-site inspection, credited toward the work.
| Service | Price in Othello | 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 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.
Othello is a Seattle light-rail neighborhood beside the rebuilt NewHolly community, with NewHolly houses and townhomes finished by 2005 on the site of a 1943 wartime housing project.
OthelloKing County, WA · 47.538, -122.276
Before and after
Illustrations of what each repair changes on a typical chimney — not photos of a specific job.
Before
After
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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.
From $475 for small crown or joint work. A full repoint, a new crown or many replaced bricks are quoted after we have seen every face of the stack.
As a reference from other Seattle companies, Mad Hatter Chimney Sweep's published prices are $1,500 to $3,000 to repoint a chimney and $800 to $1,500 to repair or replace a crown. Those are their published figures, not our quote.
Not for repointing alone. SDCI's guidance on remodeling and section R105.2 of the 2021 code both treat it as exempt, provided the structure is left as it was. Rebuilds are a different matter.
Usually, once new mortar has cured. A vapor-permeable repellent slows water entry without trapping moisture inside the brick.
A $99 on-site inspection, a written quote before any work, and photos of every item we touch.
