Delridge, King County
Masonry work on a Delridge chimney starts at $475. That entry price corresponds to a crown recast on a small stack or a limited patch of repointing; the bill grows with the square footage of joints to cut out, the number of bricks to replace and how much staging the roof needs. Brick is rarely the weak link. Mortar and the concrete crown on top take the weather first, and once they open, water gets behind the face of the brick and starts the damage you can actually see.
Typical investment
From $475
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 Delridge home — we'll point you to the right fix.
What we do
The same crew, the same written quote — for Delridge homes.
Level 1 examination of everything reachable, with a Level 2 camera pass when the reachable parts leave a question open
Learn more
Full-height brushing of the flue with a head sized to its shape and material
Learn more
Assessment of the stack from roofline to crown, with a photo of each defect
Learn more
Camera survey and measurement of the existing flue before anything is ordered
Learn more
Measurement of each flue tile, or of the whole crown for a multi-flue cap
Learn more
Burner, pilot assembly and firebox cleaned; logs or media put back in the layout the manual shows
Learn moreRanges shown for orientation — the exact figure is written up on-site, after the inspection.
Brick has been part of this valley since its industrial start. The steel mill that gave Youngstown its name began pouring in 1905, its school moved into brick in 1917, and an owner-built Youngstown house of reinforced brick, finished in 1939, was nominated as a city landmark in 2023. Not every Delridge chimney is that old, and no source counts which houses have brick stacks. But any brick chimney here, old or newer, deals with a wet climate on soil that seldom dries out completely, and that combination is what decides how long its joints last.
West Seattle has the longest trace in the city of a geological contact that engineers watch closely: the Esperance Sand lying on top of the Lawton Clay. The city's landslide study follows it along the Longfellow Creek and West Marginal Way slopes, among others, and explains that water moving down through the sand stops at the clay and seeps out as springs along the sides of the peninsula's hills.
Add the climate. Seattle-area averages from the Western Regional Climate Center, compiled over decades, record close to 6 inches of precipitation in each of December and January. Masonry in that setting is wet from above and, near the ground, often from below. Mortar that has lost its density lets that water into the brick, and the face of a saturated brick is what breaks first during a cold snap. Sound, dense joints are the protection.
Every masonry repair (crown / repointing) we do in Delridge includes:
Smoke coming back into the room, or a smell that won't go? Book the inspection first.
Book nowMortar choice matters as much as workmanship. A hard modern mortar packed into soft older brick can outlast the brick around it: the joint stays, and the faces of the bricks spall off instead. We test the existing mortar and brick by eye and touch, then mix something softer than the brick, so that if anything has to give in a future winter it is the joint, which can be repointed, and not the brick. A recast crown gets pitch plus a lip that throws drips past the brick.
We map which joints are hollow, which bricks are spalled and whether the crown is cracked, and photograph each area.
The new mortar is chosen to be softer than the brick it touches, so the joint and not the brick takes future movement.
Damaged mortar is cut back, joints are packed in layers, and failed bricks are removed and replaced with a matching unit.
The crown is recast or sealed so it slopes away from the flue, and the work is photographed before we leave.
HistoryLink's school history traces Youngstown's classrooms from a steel-company building to a five-room frame schoolhouse after a 1908 levy, and then to a brick building by architect Edgar Blair in 1917, enlarged in 1929. Renamed for Frank B. Cooper, it now houses the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center. The city's 2002 survey of commercial districts counts the improvement club hall on Delridge Way SW, dated 1914 by the historical society, among the neighborhood's most historic buildings.
The school shows the valley building in brick within a dozen years of the mill's opening. The residential code, for its part, treats the most common fix lightly. Repointing a chimney appears on the R105.2 list of permit-exempt work, provided the envelope does not change. What it does need is the right mortar.
What this work is quoted at for Delridge homes — the exact figure comes from the $99 on-site inspection, credited toward the work.
| Service | Price in Delridge | What that covers |
|---|---|---|
| Masonry Repair (Crown / Repointing) | From $475 | Crown work, repointing and tuckpointing by surface area |
| 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 Delridge. 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.
Delridge is a valley neighborhood between the two ridges of West Seattle, on Longfellow Creek, with homes of mixed ages, about a fifth of those in its ZIP code area from the 1940s and 1950s and nearly a third built since 2000. We work every part of it — Pigeon Point, Youngstown, Cottage Grove, Puget Ridge, Riverview included.
DelridgeKing County, WA · 47.547, -122.362
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.
No. Seattle's residential code names chimney repointing in its R105.2 list of permit-exempt work, on the condition that walls, roof and openings come out unchanged. Rebuilding is a different scope, and we confirm that with SDCI first.
Usually close. Old mortar has weathered for decades, so a fresh joint can look lighter for a season before it settles in.
Often you cannot from below. The $99 plus tax inspection covers both, and that amount is deducted if you approve the repair.
A $99 on-site inspection, a written quote before any work, and photos of every item we touch.
