Gatewood, King County
Our Gatewood sweeps are priced between $189 and $449. A lone fireplace that we can brush from below, on a roof nobody needs to climb, lands at the bottom of that bracket. Height on a downhill wall, a pitch too sharp to stand on, or an insert we must ease out of the opening first will each nudge it upward, and the number is on paper before any rod goes in. What you get is a flue scraped back to its walls and a set of pictures that prove it.
Typical investment
$189–$449
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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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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Measurement of each flue tile, or of the whole crown for a multi-flue cap
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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.
Gatewood is the neighborhood bounded, in Wikipedia's account, by Raymond Street to the north, Thistle Street to the south, 35th Avenue SW on the east and California Avenue and Fauntleroy Way on the west. Its streets took shape after 1907, when the developer Carlisle Gatewood paid for a streetcar line along California Avenue and Myrtle Street and platted the Gatewood Acre Tracts and Gatewood Gardens, HistoryLink writes. A fireplace in a house from those early plats could have been lit for the better part of a century. It could also have been bricked up, converted or replaced along the way, and from the sidewalk nobody can tell which. That is why we start by asking.
Gatewood School's head count says a lot about when the houses around it filled. HistoryLink records 768 pupils in April 1943, a jump it ties to the new High Point housing project next door, and enrollment topped 800 again during the 1950s. HistoryLink's broader West Seattle history adds the backdrop: wartime jobs at the Harbor Island plants drew thousands, and when the fighting stopped more than 70,000 people lived on the peninsula, twice the prewar figure.
Homes from that rush and from the boom that followed were often fitted, decades later, with an insert in the old opening. For sweeping, that matters more than the age. Before brushing, an insert has to come out of the opening far enough for rods to pass its collar, and where nobody ran a liner up from that collar, soot clings to bare masonry and takes extra passes. Once the camera has been up, you will know which one applies.
Every chimney sweep we do in Gatewood includes:
Smoke coming back into the room, or a smell that won't go? Book the inspection first.
Book nowA flue that has gone a few winters without a brush tends to announce itself in Seattle weather. Soot holds moisture, so the room smells of an old campfire on rainy days even with the damper closed. Fires catch slowly and smolder. Flakes of black crust drop onto the grate. CSIA's guidance, drawn from NFPA 211, puts the sweeping point for a masonry fireplace at one-eighth of an inch of soot, and sooner if the deposit has turned shiny. You cannot measure that from the hearth with a flashlight; our camera can.
Wikipedia places Gatewood on the highest hill in Seattle and puts the city's summit, 520 feet above sea level, at Myrtle Reservoir Park, where 35th Avenue SW crosses SW Myrtle Street. The ground does not stay level for long. At Orchard Street Ravine, Seattle Parks describes trail stairs dropping from the end of 38th Avenue SW, on the high north side, down to Orchard Street on the low south side.
On a lot that falls away like that, the chimney on the downhill wall can stand a full story taller than it looks from the front door. That decides how we sweep. Where a ladder set on a slope would be unsafe, we brush from the hearth upward with flexible rods instead of climbing, and the price reflects the method we actually use.
Tell us the fuel, roughly how many fires in a typical week, and whether a stove or insert fills the opening. Those three answers decide which rods and heads come off the van.
Cloths go down across the path. Plastic sheeting is taped over the fireplace face, with the vacuum hose fed through a slot, so the dust has nowhere to go but the canister.
Depending on roof pitch and stack height, we brush from the hearth upward or from the top downward, and keep going until the camera shows bare liner.
Whatever came down is cleared from the smoke shelf, the damper seat and the firebox floor.
You see the before and after shots. A crack, a missing tile or a loose damper is pointed out, not quietly added to a bill.
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 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 |
| Chimney Cap Installation | $235–$850 | Stainless cap fitted; multi-flue and custom at the top |
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.
$189 to $449. Access is the main variable: a walkable roof or a hearth-side job sits low, a steep or high roof sits higher.
No. A sweep cleans and we note what we see along the way. Inspecting the flue on camera and writing it up is a separate appointment, priced $99 plus tax per chimney, and that sum is subtracted from any repair quote of ours you accept.
Most single flues take one to two hours, including setup and cleanup. An insert that has to come out adds time.
Usually, yes. When the top is too far up to reach safely by ladder, we work from inside, through the damper, with flexible rods.
A $99 on-site inspection, a written quote before any work, and photos of every item we touch.
