Chimney work in Tacoma, from the North End down to Fern Hill

Every service on the site is available at a Tacoma address, whether the flue serves an open masonry fireplace, a wood stove or insert, or a gas appliance. Start by saying what you have noticed — a smell, a ceiling stain, grit in the firebox, or that it has been a while.

1. 1

   Look at the chimney

   From the firebox up and, where the roof can be reached safely, from the top down. Anything not visible without opening something up is named as unknown, not guessed at.

2. 2

   Photograph before and after

   From the same angles where practical, including the crown and the flashing — the two parts a homeowner never gets to see.

3. 3

   Put the scope and price in writing

   You approve it before anything starts, with what is urgent, what can wait a season, and what does not need doing separated out.

Chimney4u is a service-area business. There is no Tacoma office or shop to walk into — the crew travels to the property, and everything happens at your house.

Coverage runs the length of the city: the North End, Old Town, Stadium District, North Slope, Proctor and Point Defiance; the West End out to Titlow; Downtown, Hilltop and the Lincoln District; South Tacoma, Fern Hill and the South End; the Eastside, McKinley Hill and Salishan; and Northeast Tacoma across the bay.

Several places people call Tacoma are separate cities that issue their own permits — Ruston, Fircrest, University Place, Lakewood. Still inside the service area, but say which side of the line your address sits on.

Start with age. Tacoma's housing stock is the oldest of any city covered on this site: of roughly 97,300 units, about 26,200 were built in 1939 or earlier and about 42,200 before 1960. Roughly one house in four predates 1940.

That changes what an inspection looks for. A chimney of that vintage may have an unlined flue, clay tile nobody has ever scanned, or a thin mortar wash on top instead of a crown — the sloped slab meant to shed water past the brick on an overhang. None of it is visible from the sidewalk.

This is where Seattle-area guidance goes wrong for a Tacoma address. Pierce County spent years as the region's fine-particle problem area, and the rules written to fix that are still in force.

Where it came from

EPA designated the Wapato Hills-Puyallup River Valley area of Pierce County nonattainment for 24-hour PM2.5 in 2009, covering most of greater Tacoma and the urban growth area west of State Route 167. It was redesignated to attainment in 2015, and the wood-smoke measures stayed.

The stove rule

Since October 1, 2015 it has been illegal to purchase or operate an uncertified wood stove inside the Tacoma-Pierce County Smoke Reduction Zone; an uncertified stove has to be recycled or rendered inoperable.

What it does not cover

It applies to uncertified stoves and inserts, not to open fireplaces — though a fireplace is still off limits during an air quality burn ban.

The ban trigger

A Stage 1 ban is called here when fine particles are forecast to exceed a 24-hour average of 30 micrograms per cubic meter within 72 hours — a lower number and a longer lookahead than King County's 35 within 48 hours.

Permits inside the city limits come from the City of Tacoma's Planning and Development Services. Seattle's rules for unreinforced masonry chimneys stop at the Seattle city line and have no force here.

Tacoma exempts ordinary repairs from applying to the building official, but the exemption has a hard edge: it does not cover cutting away any wall or portion of a wall, removing or cutting any structural beam or load-bearing support, or changing a required means of egress. Repointing a few joints and taking a chimney down below the roof line sit on opposite sides of it.

• Access and roof pitch. A steep-roofed foursquare on a North Slope hill and a single-story bungalow in Fern Hill are not the same setup.
• How far down the work goes. Repointing, recasting a crown, rebuilding above the roof line, and rebuilding below it are four different jobs.
• Whether the flue needs lining. An unlined or cracked flue turns a masonry job into a venting job, with liner sizing and insulation to settle first.
• Crown and flashing together. A crown with no overhang and flashing that was caulked rather than let into a mortar joint tend to fail as a pair.
• Permit and design review. A City permit adds review and inspection steps — and in a historic special review district, a Certificate of Approval.
• Season. Masonry, crown work, and waterproofing want a dry, above-freezing window, and here that window is narrow.

Not sure which applies? Start with a chimney inspection — it decides whether you are looking at a sweep, a liner, water repairs, or masonry work. For pre-1940 Tacoma stock the usual answers are masonry repair, crown repair, and liner installation; for a ceiling stain, leak and flashing repair, cap installation, and waterproofing. Renton and Seattle have their own pages and permit authorities.