Chimney sweep near you
Yes, we work all of Mt. Tabor, from pre-1905 farm-era houses to slope houses under the park's trees. The calls here are about water and weather: moss, flashing leaks and limbs, like the tree the January 2024 ice storm dropped on a local home.
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Mt. Tabor's homes are pre-1905 farm-era houses, 1905 to 1930s bungalows and period revival homes, and later houses stepped into the slopes of an extinct cinder cone of the Boring Lava Field, 636 feet at the summit.
Railroad service from 1889 had drawn about 200 homes onto the mountain by the 1905 annexation to Portland, and they and the bungalows that followed typically have brick chimneys for a fireplace and furnace, unlined on the earliest. On the slopes a downhill chimney must climb above the roof behind it, and the 196-acre park's mature trees keep those stacks shaded and damp.
Trees are the Mt. Tabor hazard. In the January 2024 ice storm a tree crushed part of a home in the Mt. Tabor area, and a limb that misses the house can take out a crown, a cap or the flashing. A chimney here earns a Level 2 after a storm as well as before a sale, and moss and the freeze-thaw of a Portland winter do the slower damage.
Mt. Tabor chimneys are brick from before 1905 through the 1930s on the older streets, tall where the house steps into the slope, and mossy where the park's big trees keep the sun off them all winter.
What fails here is the roof joint and the top. Flashing that a limb has lifted, a cricket missing above a wide stack, and counter flashing that a reroof sealed with caulk let water into the attic beside the chimney. Moss holds water on the shaded face, the crown cracks, and a tall unbraced stack is a candidate for the next limb or the next shake.
Storm damage and water shape the Mt. Tabor list, and the slope adds height to many of those jobs.
After the ice storm, after a windstorm that dropped limbs, or before a sale, a Mt. Tabor chimney gets a Level 2 camera inspection: the flue scanned for cracked tile, the attic checked where the stack passes through, and the top photographed from the roof. A chimney that took a hit from a limb can look fine from the yard and be cracked through at the roofline.
A ceiling stain near the chimney on a Mt. Tabor slope house often traces to flashing that a limb lifted or that the last roofer sealed with caulk, and under the park's trees the wood around it stays wet. We rebuild the step and counter flashing in metal, add a cricket above a wide stack, and seal the counter flashing into a mortar joint rather than onto the brick.
Crowns on the butte crack from freeze-thaw like everywhere else, and then a falling limb finishes them. We cast a new crown with an overhang past the brick and a bond break around the flue tile, and when the top courses are loose we rebuild those first so the new crown sits on something solid.
A sweep on a Mt. Tabor fireplace is the usual brushes, sealed hearth and running vacuum, with the smoke shelf cleared of the wet soot that collects under an uncapped flue in the rain. The Level 1 look at the top is where we spot moss thick enough to matter and a crown that is starting to go.
When a limb has broken the stack or a tall slope chimney has lost too much mortar to repoint, we rebuild from the roofline up, matching the brick and giving the new top a cap and a crown that sheds water. On a stack that stands well above a steep roof, that is also the moment to talk about bracing or a lighter top.
Mt. Tabor sits between I-84 and I-205 and is reached along E Burnside St, or from the west out SE Belmont St, SE Hawthorne Blvd or SE Division St, with SE 60th Ave and SE 76th Ave as the north-south streets we use.
The butte puts many houses on a slope, so say at booking whether your house is on the slope, where the truck can stand, and whether the chimney is on the uphill or the downhill side of the house. A downhill chimney on a stepped lot can need a longer ladder than the address suggests.
Mount Tabor Park sits on a volcanic cinder cone whose cinders were found by a road-building crew in 1913.
The park's three open reservoirs no longer supply drinking water; the city council voted to decommission them in August 2015.
In 2023 Mount Tabor Park was designated the first Urban Quiet Park in the United States.
The area was named by Plympton Kelly after Mount Tabor in Israel, and the 196-acre park was Portland's largest until Forest Park.
Warner Pacific University, Western Seminary, Glencoe Elementary and Mount Tabor Middle School are the institutions residents give directions by, and the whole neighborhood is in 97215.
Every address, slope and flat, from the blocks along Burnside to the houses under the park on the upper streets. All of Mt. Tabor is in 97215 and all of it is on our Southeast route; the posted price covers the service wherever the house sits, and the drive up the butte is never billed on its own once the work is done. Tell us the slope so we plan the ladder.
Keep the fireplace cold and have the chimney inspected before anything else. If brick is loose over a walkway, keep people off that side until it is looked at. A limb strike can crack the crown, shear the top courses or break flue tiles you cannot see from the ground. We do a Level 2 with a camera and a roof pass, photograph the damage for your records, and quote the repair from what we find.
We take it off by hand and brush, not with a pressure washer, then repoint the joints it was covering and put on a breathable water repellent. Moss under the park's trees comes back faster than on a sunny lot, because the brick stays damp longer, so the repellent matters more here than elsewhere and a cap that keeps the crown dry helps too. The moss guide explains why a sealer would make things worse.
Yes, most of it. The camera goes up the flue from the firebox, the attic and basement get checked from inside, and the top can be photographed from a ladder at the eave or with a pole camera. For a crown repair or a cap on a steep slope roof we do go up, with anchors and a harness, and a stack that stands far above the roof sometimes needs scaffolding, which we tell you about before quoting.
No, Mount Tabor Park and the reservoirs are city historic districts, but the houses around them are not, and historic status has nothing to do with burning anyway. What applies is the Multnomah County wood smoke ordinance: red days stop wood fires from noon until the same time the next day for everyone without an exemption, yellow days ask you to consider limiting burning, and either can come in any month. The details are in our wood burning rules guide.
Probably, because a general home inspector sees the top of the chimney and the firebox, not the flue between them. The report often says so and recommends a chimney inspection. Get ahead of it with your own Level 2 camera inspection before listing: the images show the buyer what is there, the home-sale law question about any uncertified stove gets answered early, and a repair quoted before the offer is easier to plan than one negotiated after it.
Ask three things: how they reach the top of a tall stack on a steep roof, whether flue camera footage is included, and whether the price was posted beforehand. Before that, run the company through the state's contractor lookup; our contractor-check guide shows how without any sales pitch. A company that answers the roof question with specifics is one that has stood on a Mt. Tabor roof before.
West of the butte the run continues into Sunnyside and Richmond, north to Laurelhurst, and east and south to Montavilla and Foster-Powell.
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.