Chimney sweep near you
We work the Southwest Hills from the Portland Heights estates above Goose Hollow to the ridge at Council Crest. Tall, multi-flue stacks on steep lots are common, so camera inspections, repointing, and earthquake-minded rebuilds above the roofline are what we get called for.
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Portland Heights, the northeastern corner of the Southwest Hills above Goose Hollow, was built out from the 1890s to the 1920s with large houses and estates, and their chimneys are some of the tallest and oldest brick on our route.
A Portland Heights stack often carries three or more flues, one for each fireplace and one for the coal furnace in the basement, built before clay liners were standard. The period revival houses that followed on the winding streets in the 1920s to 1940s have decorative brick chimneys, usually tile lined, and the mid-century and later custom homes on the steepest lots add whatever their architect chose.
The slope sets the terms of every job. A chimney on the downhill side of a house stepped into the Tualatin Mountains can rise three stories from grade, the forest keeps its shaded face green with moss, and the upper streets near Council Crest hold ice longer than the valley after a storm, with limbs coming down on roofs.
The signature chimney of the Southwest Hills is a tall, unreinforced brick stack with several flues, built for a house that heated with coal and lit three or four fireplaces, and often never lined.
Height and age open the mortar joints and split the crown, and an uncapped multi-flue top lets rain down every passage. Shade grows moss that keeps the brick wet through every freeze. Because the stack is tall, slender and unreinforced, it is the part of the house most likely to fall in an earthquake, so bracing or a rebuild from the roofline often comes up once the camera goes in.
Tall, old and exposed stacks are why camera inspections, rebuilds, repointing and multi-flue caps fill the Southwest Hills list, with sweeps for the tile-lined period houses.
On a Portland Heights house the camera is the only honest way to know what three or four century-old flues look like inside, so a Level 2 inspection often opens the job here, and it is the first thing we book when a house changes hands or a flue is being brought back after years cold. The images show which flues have tile, which never did, and where the joints have opened.
A tall unreinforced stack that is leaning, cracked through or shedding brick is rebuilt from the roofline up, with reinforcing inside the new work and straps to the framing, or taken down to the roof and finished with a listed metal chimney in a framed chase. Bracing an old stack reduces the earthquake risk but does not remove it, and we say so before you choose.
Century-old joints on a three-story stack open from the top down, and the rain side of a Portland Heights chimney often shows deep, open joints before anyone looks. We rake and repoint with a mortar matched to the original in color and softness, replace spalled brick one at a time, and rebuild the crown so the repair is not undone by the next winter.
A multi-flue top with nothing on it takes rain into every passage and swifts or squirrels into the ones that are not used, and on the ridge the wind and ice test any cap that was only screwed to a crumbling crown. We fit a single multi-flue cap over the whole top, anchored into sound masonry, with a screen sized to keep birds out and sparks in.
The period revival houses with one or two tile-lined fireplaces still burn through the hill's long gray winters, and a yearly sweep with the Level 1 look-over is the routine; on the older houses we sweep the flues in use and camera the ones that have been closed off. After an ice storm has dropped limbs on the roof we check the flashing and crown before anything else.
We climb into the Southwest Hills on SW Vista Ave and SW Broadway Dr from downtown, on SW Patton Rd and SW Humphrey Blvd from the Sunset Highway side, or from Hillsdale along SW Fairmount Blvd and SW Talbot Rd to the south.
The streets wind along the slope and parking can be tight. Tell us which side of the house the chimney stands on and where a truck can stop with ladders off the rack; on some lots the right answer is a neighbor's drive, and we would rather ask first than block the lane.
Council Crest Park sits 1,071 feet above sea level, one of the highest points in the West Hills, and on a clear day the viewpoint shows Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams, Mount Hood and Mount Jefferson.
A streetcar reached the Council Crest summit on September 20, 1906, and an amusement park ran there from 1907 to 1929.
The hill was called Talbot Mountain, Glass Hill and Fairmount before visiting church delegates named it Council Crest in 1898.
Much of the western part of the Southwest Hills lies outside the city limits in unincorporated Multnomah County.
The Tualatin Mountains the neighborhood climbs are known for steep slopes, periodic landslides and earthquake faults, which is part of why an unreinforced chimney here deserves a second look.
Yes, the whole Southwest Hills and Council Crest neighborhood is in our area, across 97201, 97239 and 97221. That includes the city blocks of Portland Heights and the unincorporated county streets to the west; the line can change which permit rules and fees apply, not whether we come. Prices are the posted ones, and when we do the work there is nothing extra for coming up the hill.
Not until each flue you want to use has been camera-inspected and, most likely, relined with a stainless liner sized to its fireplace. Unlined flues in a shared stack can also leak into one another through open joints, so smoke from one fireplace can show up in another room. We inspect all four, line the ones you will burn in, and cap and seal the ones you will not.
Yes: unreinforced brick chimneys are the first part of an old house to fail in a quake, and tall, slender ones on hillside houses are the most exposed. The options run from strapping and bracing the existing stack, which lowers the risk without removing it, to rebuilding from the roofline with reinforcing, to taking the brick down to the roof and finishing with a listed metal chimney. Our unreinforced masonry guide weighs each one.
Because wind-driven rain and melting ice find openings that a vertical drizzle never reaches. Those are open joints on the stack, a hairline crack across the crown, or flashing lifted at the uphill side of the chimney, and on the ridge near Council Crest the ice sits longer than in the valley and melts into them. We trace the path from the top down with a camera and a hose test, then fix the entry point, not the stain.
Yes, the county rule covers every Multnomah County address, inside a city or not. The unincorporated western streets of the Southwest Hills follow the same red and yellow days as Portland Heights. On a red day wood and pellet burning stops from noon to noon unless the county has granted the household an exemption. Open fires are also off limits in Council Crest Park and Marquam Nature Park, as in every city park, in any season.
Expect a Level 2 camera inspection before closing, the level the chimney standard recommends whenever a property changes owners. On a 1910 hill house it often finds some of these: unlined flues, open joints high on the stack, a cracked crown and no cap. Budget for a liner in the fireplace you will use and for repointing above the roof, and if an old wood stove or insert came with the house, Oregon's home-sale removal rule applies to it.
Read our contractor-check guide first; it shows how the state's public lookup works and what to make of what it shows. Then ask about the specifics of a hill job: how they will reach the downhill face, whether the report includes the camera images from each flue, and whether the price was set before anyone drove up. A company that is vague about the first question should not get the roof.
Down any side of the ridge the same crew lands in Hillsdale, Bridlemile, Multnomah Village or West Slope, or runs north to the Northwest District and Forest Heights.
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.