Our service area: the neighborhoods of North Seattle

10 communities, one local crew. All ten are neighborhoods of Seattle, and the city reached them in two stages. The first came early. Fremont and the land north of Lake Union were annexed in 1891, Ballard stayed a city of its own until 1907, and the streetcar that circled Green Lake from 1902 opened the east slope of Phinney Ridge to builders. That history shows in the census: in ZIP area 98103 (Fremont's, and equally that of Phinney Ridge, Wallingford, southern Greenwood and Green Lake), 34.7 percent of the housing units predate 1940. The second stage waited for the 1950s. North of N 85th Street small farms were still working the land when World War II ended, and Seattle annexed it only in 1954, four years after the Northgate mall opened there. Wedgwood sits between the two stages, its original plat filed in July 1941.

Rain here is frequent more than it is heavy. The weather station at Sand Point, in northeast Seattle, saw some rain or snow on roughly 158 days of an average year from 1986 to 2012, yet only about 4 of those days brought an inch or more. For the city as a whole, WeatherSpark puts the wettest month at November, roughly 7.5 inches spread over 16.7 wet days. Wind keeps the same calendar: Seattle's emergency management office says major storms bring gusts of up to 90 mph and that falling trees do much of the structural damage. Earthquakes are the slower risk. The city's construction department estimates an 86 percent chance of a damaging one within 50 years, a good reason to know what shape a brick chimney is in before it is tested.

The order of a job is the same on every street. A technician inspects the chimney and photographs it. The findings come to you in writing, each with its price. No work goes on the schedule before you have accepted that price. Inspection times are chosen online, from the openings listed for your neighborhood.