Chimney sweep near you
Yes, we cover Sunnyside and the Hawthorne corridor, from the late 1800s Victorians to the fourplexes and the condos on Belmont. With most households renting, many fireplaces here have sat closed for years, and the first question is whether one can be opened again.
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Sunnyside is old and close-built: Victorian houses from the late 1800s, Craftsman bungalows and foursquares from 1905 to 1930, and fourplexes and apartment buildings from the early 1900s, with Belmont running through it and Hawthorne along its south edge.
The Victorians carry tall, narrow brick chimneys, built before liners and before anyone thought about bracing, and the bungalows and foursquares often have the two-flue stack serving one fireplace and the furnace below. Many of these fireplaces were bricked up, boarded over or fitted with an insert at some point in the last century, and a new owner or a new tenant wants to know what is behind the cover.
About 63 percent of Sunnyside households rented in 2010, so many fireplaces here sit in rentals, and the question is whether a tenant can use one. The condos on Hawthorne and Belmont have gas fireplaces or none, and Peacock Lane's 1920s Tudor and English cottage houses, a National Register district inside Sunnyside, add a row of decorative chimneys to the mix.
A Sunnyside chimney is either a tall, narrow Victorian stack, a bungalow-era two-flue stack, or the boiler stack of a fourplex, and the older ones went up in the years before flue tile was standard.
The tall Victorian stacks are the ones to worry about: unreinforced, and the first thing to fail when the ground shakes, with mortar softened by a century of rain. Behind a closed-off fireplace we find rusted or missing dampers, smoke chambers packed with debris, fireboxes with the firebrick gone, and an insert vented into the bare brick flue, which stays cold until a liner goes in.
Rentals, Victorians and reopened fireplaces give Hawthorne and Sunnyside a call list unlike the owner-occupied blocks to the north.
Opening a fireplace that has been closed for years starts with a Level 2 camera inspection, not a match, and in Sunnyside it is a job that fits the gap between one tenant and the next. The camera shows whether the flue is lined, whether the smoke chamber is intact and whether the tall Victorian stack above it is still plumb and tight.
A damper that has rusted open, rusted shut or gone missing is the usual find behind a boarded-up Sunnyside fireplace, and a missing damper is an open hole in the house all summer. We replace a throat damper where the frame allows, or fit a top-sealing damper at the flue top, which also keeps rain and birds out of a flue that only gets used in December.
The firebox behind a cover that came off after thirty years has often lost firebrick and mortar, and the smoke chamber above it is often rough brick that never had a parge coat. We relay the firebrick in refractory mortar and parge the smoke chamber smooth, which helps an old Hawthorne fireplace draw instead of smoke.
A plain sweep on a Sunnyside bungalow or foursquare covers the fireplace flue and firebox with the hearth sealed and the vacuum running, plus a Level 1 look at the parts we can reach and a glance down the furnace flue. For a fourplex, we sweep every unit's fireplace in one visit and send the manager one set of photos per flue.
The fourplexes, the apartment buildings and the condos on Hawthorne and Belmont often vent dryers through long runs to an outside hood, and lint packs those runs until a dryer takes two cycles. We clean the vent end to end and check that the hood flap swings free, which lowers the fire risk and shortens the drying time for every unit.
Hawthorne and Sunnyside sit between SE Stark and SE Hawthorne Blvd, reached from I-84 down SE Cesar E. Chavez Blvd, from the Hawthorne Bridge straight out Hawthorne, or along SE Belmont St and SE Stark St from either end.
The side streets between SE 28th and 49th are close-built, so if your lot has no driveway, tell us where a truck can stand and whether the chimney is reachable from a side yard or only from the front. For a fourplex or an apartment building, we ask the manager for the alley access and which units are home.
Residents have repainted the sunflower at Sunnyside Piazza, SE 33rd and Yamhill, every Memorial Day weekend since 2000.
Peacock Lane, a short street between SE Stark and Belmont, was built from about 1923 to 1930 by Richard F. Wassell in English Cottage and Tudor Revival styles and was listed on the National Register in 2017.
Hawthorne Boulevard is named for Dr. J.C. Hawthorne, cofounder of Oregon's first mental hospital, and was once called Asylum Avenue.
The Hawthorne Boulevard Business Association covers the stretch from SE 12th to SE 60th, and neighbors once stopped a McDonald's from replacing a former Arby's on the boulevard; the site became condos with ground-floor retail.
Sunnyside runs from SE Stark to SE Hawthorne and from SE 28th to SE 49th, with the Belmont Library, the Avalon Theatre and Sunnyside Environmental School inside it.
Yes, every block between Stark and Hawthorne and 28th and 49th, in both ZIP codes, fourplexes and apartment buildings included. The posted prices are the same here as anywhere else on our routes, and the drive is not billed when we do the work.
Often yes, but only after a Level 2 camera inspection tells us what the closure was hiding. A Victorian flue is often tall, narrow and unlined, so the usual path back to a working fireplace is a stainless liner matched to the firebox, a new damper and a relaid firebox, and sometimes a smoke chamber parge. If the stack above the roof has lost mortar, that gets fixed first, because it is also the earthquake risk.
Yes, and that is how we prefer to do a building. Every unit's fireplace gets swept or inspected on the same day, with one set of photos per flue and one written summary that tells you which fireplaces a tenant can use and which stay cold. Fourplexes with a shared stack get each flue checked separately, because one blocked or open flue can push smoke into the unit next door.
Because the flue is pulling air down into the house, and that air passes over old creosote and whatever rain has left on the smoke shelf. A fireplace in a tall foursquare stack reverses in warm weather when the damper leaks or is missing, which is a frequent find behind a long-closed hearth. A top-sealing damper or a tight throat damper and a sweep of the smoke shelf usually end it; a camera check confirms nothing else is in there.
It applies to every household, rented or owned, so a tenant with a working fireplace should know how to check the day's color. On a red day no wood burns in fireplaces, stoves or fire pits until noon the next day, exemptions aside; yellow is a voluntary request. Managers can put the county status line in the lease packet, and our wood burning rules guide is written to be handed over.
Repoint and strap it, cut it to the roofline and cap it, or rebuild the top as a lighter listed metal flue inside a framed chase. Those run from least to most change, and cutting it down retires the fireplace. Tall slender chimneys are the most vulnerable kind in a quake, and strapping lowers the risk without removing it. A Level 2 inspection sorts out which option fits, and our unreinforced masonry guide lays out the trade-offs.
Check the state's public contractor record first; our contractor-check guide explains how. Then insist on two deliverables you can review from anywhere: the camera footage from each flue and a written note per fireplace that says use or do not use. Prices posted ahead of the visit mean the invoice will not surprise you. For a Sunnyside rental, those three things do the supervising for you.
From Sunnyside the crew drops south into Richmond, east up Mt. Tabor, north across Stark into Laurelhurst, or southwest toward Brooklyn.
Call with what the fireplace is doing, or text a photo of the opening and one of the chimney top, and we will name the service and its posted price before we come out.