Chimney sweep near you
We cover all of Rose City Park, from the 1907 streetcar-era blocks near Sandy to the mid-century houses on the north and east edges. Many calls here are about the stack's second flue, the one the furnace used before the house went to gas.
Updated
Rose City Park's blocks between NE 47th and 65th are largely bungalow and period revival, because the neighborhood, platted in 1907, grew along the trolley line from downtown until service ended in 1936.
A streetcar-era house came with one brick chimney and two flues in it: the fireplace flue, and beside it a flue for the basement furnace, which burned coal or oil, bare brick in the earliest houses and clay tile in the later ones. The houses set into the Alameda Ridge, which crosses the neighborhood, carry taller stacks so the flue tops clear the roof uphill.
Where oil gave way to gas, a gas furnace, especially a high-efficiency one vented through the side wall, leaves the furnace flue with a water heater at most and often nothing at all. That orphaned flue is the Rose City Park problem: too big and too cold for what is left on it, so it condenses, and the acid in the condensate eats mortar from the inside out.
The Rose City Park stack is a two-flue brick chimney from the trolley years, fireplace on one side and furnace on the other, with a single tile-lined fireplace flue in the mid-century houses toward Fremont and the eastern edge.
The fireplace flue fails the way most old flues do, at the crown and the top joints. The furnace flue fails faster and out of sight: condensation from a lone water heater, or damp air pulled through an unused flue, breaks down the mortar until the cleanout door in the basement fills with sand-colored grit and the fireplace beside it starts to smell.
Two flues in one stack, one of them abandoned, explain the five jobs a Rose City Park house asks of us.
A camera run through both flues is the first job on a Rose City Park house, because the furnace flue may have gone unchecked for decades and the fireplace flue often has not been seen since the previous owner. The Level 2 report shows the tile, the joints and whatever has fallen in, and it is the inspection to order when the house is being sold.
A water heater left on the old furnace flue needs a liner sized to it, so the small, warm exhaust rises instead of condensing in a flue built for a coal furnace. In the fireplace flue, a stainless liner replaces cracked tile or bare brick and gives the fireplace a continuous passage from the smoke chamber to the cap.
When the furnace flue serves nothing, we close it: a cap or a sealed cover at the top so rain stops coming down it, and a sealed plate at the thimble in the basement so house air stops going up it. The fireplace flue gets its own cap with a spark screen, and the pair of flues can share one cover if the crown allows.
A sweep in Rose City Park brushes the fireplace flue top to bottom, cleans the smoke shelf where rain and soot collect, and checks the damper, with the hearth sealed and a vacuum running. Since the furnace flue sits in the same stack, we look down it while we are there and tell you whether it is open, capped or quietly falling apart.
Mortar that failed from the inside shows up outside as open joints and loose brick near the top, and on a Rose City Park stack the furnace flue side can look worse than the fireplace side. We repoint the joints, replace spalled brick and rebuild the crown, which stops water adding to the damage the condensation started.
Rose City Park sits between NE Fremont St and the Banfield, so we come in from I-84 along NE Sandy Blvd, or across on NE Halsey St and NE Glisan St from the Hollywood end, with NE 57th and 60th as the north-south spines.
Some streets here climb the Alameda Ridge, so tell us if your lot steps up or down from the street and which side of the house the chimney rises on. If the furnace flue is the question, clear a path to the basement cleanout and the water heater so we can see where the flue goes without moving your storage.
Trolley service from downtown began in 1907 and ended on November 30, 1936, and the neighborhood's boundaries today run from NE 47th to NE 65th and from NE Fremont to the Banfield.
The Rose City Golf Course opened in 1920, and its clubhouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.
NABISCO planned a factory in Rose City Park in 1946 and 1947, then dropped the plan and built in Piedmont instead.
Normandale Park and Frazer Park are the neighborhood's other open spaces, and the NE 60th Ave MAX station sits on its southern edge.
Rose City Park was platted in 1907, the same year Portland held its first Rose Festival.
Yes, all of Rose City Park in 97213, from the golf course blocks to the streets on the ridge, is on our regular Northeast run. The posted price for a sweep or an inspection is the price here, and the drive is part of the job rather than a fee once we do the work; a house with both flues to look at takes one visit.
Follow the pipes in the basement. If a metal vent pipe runs from the water heater or furnace into the brick, the flue is still working for that appliance; if the furnace vents through a white plastic pipe out the side wall and nothing else enters the chimney, the flue is orphaned. Either way, a camera look tells you its condition, and the orphaned chimney guide explains what to do with each case.
Probably, and the furnace flue is the usual suspect. A flue carrying only a water heater runs cold and condenses, and the acidic water soaks the brick and the mortar until the cleanout area smells sour and the joints start shedding grit. Keep a carbon monoxide alarm on that floor in the meantime. A camera run through that flue settles it; the fix is a liner sized to the water heater or sealing the flue off entirely.
We look down it while the ladder is up, and we tell you what we find. The sweep itself covers the fireplace flue, firebox, smoke chamber and damper with brushes matched to the flue size and the vacuum going; the furnace flue gets a visual check and, if you want it, a camera pass at the same visit. Debris, a bird nest or an open thimble in that flue goes in the notes with photos.
Yes, it applies here, and enforcement runs on complaints. The county's process starts with a letter, a second complaint can bring a visit, and a third with visible smoke can lead to a fine. A red day bars burning in fireplaces, in wood and pellet stoves and in fire pits for a full day starting at noon unless you hold an exemption. Our wood burning rules guide covers the colors, the exemptions and how to check today's status.
A Level 2 with a camera, run through both flues, is the one to put in the offer. The trade recommends a Level 2 at a sale, though no law requires one, and on a 1912 Rose City Park bungalow the camera is the only way to learn whether the fireplace flue has tile and what the furnace flue has been doing since the oil furnace left. You get the images, and the report reads them for you.
Start with the state's public contractor lookup, which our contractor-check guide explains step by step. Then ask whether the number was posted ahead of the visit and whether the camera footage from your own flues comes with it. For a two-flue Rose City Park stack, also ask whether they will look at the furnace flue, because the one nobody asks about is the one that fails.
Rose City Park borders Hollywood on the west and Roseway and Cully to the north, with Montavilla across the Banfield.
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.