Chimney care for Redmond homes, from Education Hill to Overlake

Sweeping, inspection, masonry and crown repair, cap installation, flashing and leak work, relining, waterproofing, and rebuild or restoration are all available here. Which one you need is settled at the first look.

We work across all ten of the city's neighborhoods, from Downtown and Overlake to Education Hill, North Redmond and Willows and Rose Hill. What decides whether a job runs smoothly is roof access, pitch, and somewhere to set a ladder.

1. 1

   You describe the appliance and the symptom

   Open masonry fireplace, insert, wood stove, or a gas appliance venting into an old flue — each leads to a different scope.

2. 2

   The system is worked from both ends

   Firebox, damper, smoke chamber and flue from inside; crown, cap, flashing and termination from the roof where it is safe to be.

3. 3

   The chimney is photographed

   Before and after, from the same angles where practical, so you can see the parts you cannot reach.

4. 4

   You get a written scope and price

   Nothing starts until you approve it, and a finding that changes the scope goes back to you first.

5. 5

   You are told what is urgent and what is not

   Sorted into what needs doing now, what can wait a season, and what does not need doing at all.

The most useful thing to know about a chimney here is when the house around it went up. Redmond built out late, and the numbers are in the city's own plan.

That puts most Redmond fireplaces into one of two families, and they fail in different ways.

Masonry chimney with a clay tile flue

Brick outside, stacked clay liner tiles inside. It ages through the mortar joints, the crown and the tiles — cracked or shifted tiles are a relining conversation, not a patching one.

Factory-built chimney inside a framed chase

A metal fireplace and a listed metal chimney, boxed in a wood-framed chase finished with siding or brick veneer. From the street it can pass for masonry. On the roof it is topped by a sheet-metal chase cover rather than a poured crown, and that cover is what rusts through and drips.

Redmond is not Seattle, and SDCI has no say at a Redmond address.

Brick and mortar pull water in through tiny capillaries and dry by evaporation. Trouble starts when a chimney never fully dries between wettings, because saturated masonry that then freezes can spall and crumble at the face.

You get a written scope and price before work begins. These move it.

• Masonry or factory-built. A rusted chase cover and a failed brick crown are different trades, materials and amounts of roof time.
• Roof access and pitch. A steep roof, a tall stack, or a chimney set back from safe staging adds setup before chimney work starts.
• How much of the flue can be seen. A camera scan of the full flue separates a guess from a scope.
• Extent of damage, not just its presence. Repointing a band of joints, rebuilding above the roofline, and taking a stack down to a sound course can start from the same-looking photo.
• Liner sizing and appliance match. Relining depends on the appliance, the required diameter, and whether insulation is needed for the liner's listing.
• Season and wall temperature. Mortar work wants moderate wall temperatures, which narrows the good windows here.

If you are unsure what you need, start with an inspection. It tells you which of the two chimney families you own, and everything else is priced off what it finds.

• Burning this winter. A chimney sweep plus a chimney inspection, before the heating season.
• Stains, drips or a damp smell. Leak repair, flashing repair and crown repair are where water usually gets in.
• Crumbling brick or open joints. Masonry repair and waterproofing, or rebuild and restoration in the worst cases.
• Cracked tiles or a new appliance. Liner installation, sized to the appliance rather than to the old opening.

Kirkland, Bellevue, Bothell and Issaquah are covered on the same terms, and each has its own permitting office.