Gatewood, King County
Fitting a cap on a Gatewood chimney costs between $235 and $850. A standard stainless cap clamped to a single round or square flue is the bottom of that span. A cap spanning several flues, one built to a measured size for an odd crown, or one that has to be anchored into masonry instead of clamped pushes the price toward the top. Whatever you choose, the job is the same in spirit: keep rain out of the flue, keep birds and squirrels from moving in, and keep the hood on the chimney through a winter of southerly gusts.
Typical investment
$235–$850
Book an inspection
Book your $99 inspection
$99 plus tax, deducted when you approve the repair
Not sure where to start
Pick what you're seeing at your Gatewood home — we'll point you to the right fix.
What we do
The same crew, the same written quote — for Gatewood homes.
Level 1 examination of everything reachable, with a Level 2 camera pass when the reachable parts leave a question open
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Full-height brushing of the flue with a head sized to its shape and material
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Assessment of the stack from roofline to crown, with a photo of each defect
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Camera survey and measurement of the existing flue before anything is ordered
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Burner, pilot assembly and firebox cleaned; logs or media put back in the layout the manual shows
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Joints cut back to firm mortar and repointed (tuckpointing) to match the existing profile
Learn moreRanges shown for orientation — the exact figure is written up on-site, after the inspection.
Trees are a fact of life on the peninsula. By Wikipedia's count, a third of all the city's parks, greenbelts and urban woods are on this side of the Duwamish, the West Duwamish Greenbelt above all, and Seattle's own windstorm report files West Seattle with its most forested districts. A bare flue opening is an invitation in that setting. Needles and seed husks collect on the smoke shelf, birds nest in spring, and a raccoon may decide a dry, warm shaft is better than a hollow trunk. A screened cap closes that door.
Houses around Gatewood skew old: Census estimates put about half of all housing units in the surrounding ZIP code area before 1960. The same survey shows oil still heating 4.7 percent of occupied homes there, versus 2.9 percent citywide. A house of that era that once had both a fireplace and an oil furnace may carry two or three flues side by side in one stack, and some will have a newer liner sticking up through the old tile.
That changes what kind of cap fits. A single-flue cap clamps onto one tile; a stack with several flues of different heights usually needs one hood over the whole crown, with mesh down to the crown surface and enough free area for every flue under it. A liner that rises above its tile takes a cap made for the liner's diameter. We measure each of them before suggesting anything.
Every chimney cap installation we do in Gatewood includes:
Smoke coming back into the room, or a smell that won't go? Book the inspection first.
Book nowA cap is also governed by code, which is why the cheapest one on a shelf is not always legal. Seattle's 2021 residential code says a spark arrestor screen, where one is fitted, needs a net opening of no less than four times the flue's own, holes that pass a 3/8-inch sphere but not a 1/2-inch one, wire at least as durable under heat as 24-gage stainless or 19-gage galvanized, and a way to remove it for sweeping. Rain caps must leave that same fourfold free area. We size to those numbers, not to what fits the box.
Wikipedia gives Seattle's highest point, 520 feet, at Myrtle Reservoir Park on the corner of 35th Avenue SW and SW Myrtle Street, on the hill Gatewood occupies. WeatherSpark's Seattle profile marks October 15 through April 24 as the windier stretch of the year, with December the breeziest month and the wind coming mostly from the south outside midsummer.
Those averages are citywide and modest, but averages hide gusts, and a hood catches every one of them. A cap that only friction-fits onto a tile can lift and walk off over a winter on an exposed roof. On this hill we prefer fasteners that bite: stainless clamps tightened against the flue, or anchors set into a sound crown. If the crown is too weak to hold an anchor, we tell you before the cap goes on.
Tape on every flue, then on the crown; we also judge whether that crown will hold an anchor.
One flue, several flues, or a custom-made cover. We show you the choices with their prices and why one fits better.
Any nest or packed debris comes out first; trapping a nest under new mesh helps nobody.
We clamp the cap to the flue tile or fix it into the brick, then tug on it by hand to check it will not shift.
You get pictures of the cap from the roof, since most people cannot see their own chimney top from the street.
What this work is quoted at for Gatewood homes — the exact figure comes from the $99 on-site inspection, credited toward the work.
| Service | Price in Gatewood | What that covers |
|---|---|---|
| Chimney Cap Installation | $235–$850 | Stainless cap fitted; multi-flue and custom at the top |
| Chimney Sweep | $189–$449 | Full flue swept, Level 1 inspection included |
| Chimney Inspection | $99 plus tax | Level 1 visual; Level 2 adds a full camera scan |
| Chimney Relining | From $1,900 | Full-length stainless liner, sized to the appliance |
| Chimney Repair | From $425 | Masonry repair — brick and mortar, scoped after diagnosis |
Ranges are what these jobs are quoted at in Gatewood. The exact figure is set on site after a $99 inspection (credited toward the job if you go ahead), and you approve it before any work starts.
Gatewood is a hilltop neighborhood named for Carlisle Gatewood, the developer who financed its streetcar line in 1907, with older homes, about three in ten of those in its ZIP code area built before 1940 and half before 1960.
GatewoodKing County, WA · 47.545, -122.386
Before and after
Illustrations of what each repair changes on a typical chimney — not photos of a specific job.
Before
After
Before
After
Before
After
Four steps, each one on paper — so you always know what happens next.
Choose a genuine opening on the crew's calendar. Confirmation is immediate.
Liner, crown, cap, flashing and masonry examined in order — each finding photographed.
One document, plain numbers, covering only the work your chimney genuinely needs.
The repair is completed, then handed over with before-and-after photos of every item.
$235 to $850, fitted. Expect the bottom of that span for one ordinary flue and the top for a hood that covers several or is built to measure.
Seattle's code sets rules for spark arrestors and rain caps where they are installed; it does not, in the sections we read, require every chimney to have one. We recommend one for every open flue.
A correctly sized cap should not. That is the purpose of the code's fourfold free-area rule, and why we measure before ordering.
Not for a cap alone. If we see damage up top while fitting it, we tell you, and our camera inspection, at $99 plus tax for each chimney, is credited toward any work you approve from our quote.
A $99 on-site inspection, a written quote before any work, and photos of every item we touch.
