Chimney care across Snohomish County, from tidewater to Darrington

Snohomish County contains twenty incorporated cities and towns — Arlington, Bothell, Brier, Darrington, Edmonds, Everett, Gold Bar, Granite Falls, Index, Lake Stevens, Lynnwood, Marysville, Mill Creek, Monroe, Mountlake Terrace, Mukilteo, Snohomish, Stanwood, Sultan, and Woodway. Inside those limits the city permits and inspects construction. Everything outside them is unincorporated, and there the county does.

For an unincorporated address the authority is Snohomish County Planning and Development Services, usually written PDS. It issues residential building permits and a separate residential mechanical permit, runs paperless through its online Permit Portal, and takes an "Ask Permit Tech" question from anyone unsure whether a permit applies.

Which code applies

The county enforces the State Building Code, which from March 15, 2024 includes the 2021 International Residential, Mechanical, and Fire Codes as amended and adopted by Washington State.

Re-roofing, and the flashing that goes with it

In unincorporated Snohomish County a re-roof overlay limited to two total layers, or a tear-off replaced in the same material with the sheathing untouched, is on the county's common permit-exemption list. That exemption is written about roofing material, so raise chimney flashing and masonry separately.

The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency covers King, Kitsap, Pierce, and Snohomish counties, and it calls air quality burn bans county by county. A ban is therefore a county-wide event here: it reaches Edmonds and Darrington on the same announcement, whatever the weather is doing outside your own window.

The trigger is not the same across the region. As of 2026 the agency says Stage 1 is called when fine particles are forecast to exceed a 24-hour average of 30 micrograms per cubic meter within 72 hours in Snohomish and Pierce counties, against 35 within 48 hours in King and Kitsap. A fireplace here goes under a ban at a lower forecast number than one in Seattle.

Snohomish County runs from Puget Sound east into the Cascades, and the rain gauge changes as you go. The 1991-2020 normals give 36.05 inches of precipitation a year at the Everett / Snohomish County Airport station, 48.77 at Monroe, and 81.30 at Darrington Ranger Station.

Freezing follows the same gradient: 21.4 nights a year at or below freezing at Paine Field, 49.4 at Monroe, and 71.8 at Darrington, against 1.7, 2.5, and 3.3 days that never rise above it. Subtract one from the other and the west of the county crosses the freezing point about twenty times a year while the east crosses it about seventy.

If nobody has been on the roof in years, start with a chimney inspection. It decides whether the answer is a sweep, a liner, water repairs, or masonry work.

• Everett. Read it for salt-air corrosion of caps, chase covers, and flashing, and for the city's own permit counter.
• Bothell. Read it for a city split across the King-Snohomish line, where the burn ban number changes but the permit office does not.
• By what has gone wrong. Water goes to cap installation, crown repair, flashing repair, leak repair, or waterproofing; a failed flue or failed masonry goes to liner installation, masonry repair, or rebuild and restoration.