Green Lake, King County
Chimney work in Green Lake starts with the calendar. The neighborhood was laid out in lots before 1900, built up in the following decade, and has kept a large share of those houses. Around them sits a park of 323 acres and a climate that keeps brick damp from October into April. This page gathers what the public record says about the place, because the age of a stack, the shade over it and the ground under it explain most of what we find when we climb up. Every job starts with a $99 plus tax inspection, and that sum is applied to the job when you say yes to the quote.
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$99 plus tax, deducted when you approve the repair
Not sure where to start
Pick what you're seeing at your Green Lake home — we'll point you to the right fix.
What we do
The same crew, the same written quote — for Green Lake homes.
The whole flue brushed, using heads picked for the liner's size and shape
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A Level 1 review of everything reachable, raised to a Level 2 camera scan when a question stays open
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Camera survey and measurements taken before any liner is chosen
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A photo assessment that distinguishes surface wear from structural damage
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Measurement of each flue, or of the crown when a single cap will span several
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Crown and all four sides photographed before any work
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Inspection of crown, joints and flashing before anything is applied
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Leak tracing from the stain indoors to the entry point on the roof
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Glass removed, cleaned and checked for a sound gasket
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A camera scan to identify the type and extent of the deposit
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The duct brushed along its entire run, dryer end to outside hood
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Interior photos of several duct runs before cleaning
Learn moreRanges shown for orientation — the exact figure is written up on-site, after the inspection.
Service-area map — Green Lake, Seattle. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
HistoryLink draws Green Lake's edges at the east slope of Phinney Ridge, N 85th Street and the Interstate 5 corridor, with an arm reaching south to N 50th Street. Wikipedia gives the neighborhood 2.32 square miles and 17,516 residents. It has been inside Seattle since 1891, when the city limits moved north to 85th Street, decades ahead of the districts beyond that line. The freeway that marks its eastern side is far younger: the full Seattle Freeway opened in 1965. Ravenna Boulevard, built as the Olmsted plan of 1903 recommended, still links the lake to Ravenna Park.
Erhart Seifried claimed 132 acres on the northeast shore in 1869, and William D. Wood bought the holding in 1887. Four years later Wood and E.C. Kilbourne ran a trolley line up the east shore, in the same year the district was annexed. The financial panic of 1893 slowed building for a while.
By 1900 nearly all of the future neighborhood had been platted. The decisive step came in 1902, when the streetcar was extended the whole way around the lake; HistoryLink counts about 8,000 people living around Green Lake by 1903. The city's history of Wallingford dates the residential boom here to roughly 1900 through 1910. The northwest side waited longer, developing with the Aurora bridge and highway that opened in 1932.
John C. Olmsted put a boulevard around Green Lake in his 1903 park plan for Seattle and returned with a revised plan for the lake in May 1910. HistoryLink's park essay says the water was lowered six feet in 1910 for the North Trunk Sewer; its neighborhood essay credits the drawdown, completed in 1910-1911, with adding about 100 acres of dry land.
The lake has been managed ever since. In 1921 the city health department closed the beaches and began diverting reservoir water in to freshen it, and in the 1930s Works Progress Administration crews dredged more than 450,000 cubic yards to deepen it and curb algae. Today's park measures 323 acres beside Woodland Park, with a 2.8-mile path around the shore.
The Census Bureau does not publish housing age by neighborhood, so the closest measure is ZIP area 98103, a tabulation area covering Green Lake together with Fremont, Wallingford, Phinney Ridge and southern Greenwood. It holds 28,631 housing units, and 34.7 percent of them were standing by 1939. The 1940s contributed only 3.2 percent and the 1950s 5.9 percent, while 13.8 percent arrived in the 2010s. Hence a median construction year of 1970 for an area where prewar homes exceed one in three.
Detached houses make up 37.8 percent of units there. For heat, 56.7 percent of occupied homes rely on electricity and 39.6 percent on utility gas; about 130 households burn wood as their primary fuel. Fireplaces are not counted anywhere in these tables, and chimney construction is not described. They tell us to expect old brick in some streets and factory-built vents in others, and to check before assuming.
No weather station record was found for Green Lake itself, so the figures here are Seattle's. WeatherSpark's wetter season opens October 10 and runs some 6.6 months, with November the wettest month, and a clearer spell, about 3.8 months long, that begins in mid-June. Cloud peaks in January, with overcast or mostly cloudy skies 71 percent of the hours.
Cold is modest. The same source gives a snowy period of about 1.3 months, December 12 to January 20, and an average of 1.2 inches in January, the snowiest month. For masonry that adds up to long dampness with occasional frost, a combination that wears mortar slowly and steadily.
At 10:54 on the morning of February 28, 2001, the Nisqually earthquake released magnitude 6.8 from roughly 52 kilometers under the southern Puget Sound. The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network tallies about 400 injuries. It was a deep quake, far from the surface. The city also lives with a shallow source: the Seattle Fault. It runs east-west through the middle of the city, is rated by the city as capable of magnitude 7.5, and last ruptured about 1,100 years ago.
No source we read reports chimney damage for Green Lake specifically, and we do not claim any. What is documented is the general weakness of tall, unreinforced brick, and in ZIP area 98103 the pre-1940 share of housing is 34.7 percent. For a chimney that cannot be retrofitted, FEMA suggests interim caution: keep time spent right beside it short, inside the house and outside, and never put a bed next to it. A bed against the chimney breast in an upstairs room is worth moving.
Living beside a big park has a cost on the roof. Seattle's windstorm profile attributes much of the damage in a storm to trees and limbs coming down, and the neighborhood borders both Green Lake Park and Woodland Park. Nothing on a house stands higher than its chimney, so a falling branch meets it first; after any major blow it is worth a look from the ground with binoculars for a shifted cap or fresh cracks in the crown.
The slower effect is moss. Oregon State University Extension traces roof moss in the Pacific Northwest to moisture combined with shade, and warns that cleaning alone is temporary: without more sunlight on the surface, the moss returns. On chimneys we see it first on crowns and on the uphill side where needles collect. Clearing that pocket each fall does more for a stack than any product.
The grid we quote from for Green Lake homes — the $99 inspection comes first, the written quote before any work.
| Service | Price in Green Lake | What that covers |
|---|---|---|
| Chimney Sweep | $209–$459 | 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 | $265–$850 | Stainless cap fitted; multi-flue and custom at the top |
| Masonry Repair (Crown / Repointing) | From $475 | Crown work, repointing and tuckpointing by surface area |
| Chimney Waterproofing | $320–$795 | Breathable sealer — reapplied every 3–5 years in this climate |
| Chimney Flashing Repair | $375–$1,495 | Reseal at the low end, full flashing replacement at the high |
| Gas Fireplace Service | $189–$479 | Annual service and tune-up; repairs quoted after diagnosis |
| Creosote Removal | From $245 | Priced by creosote stage — glazed stage 3 is the heavy end |
| Dryer Vent Cleaning | $105–$295 | Full run cleaned; roof or upper-floor terminations at the top |
| Air Duct Cleaning | From $525 | Whole HVAC system — trunks, branches and every register |
Ranges are what these jobs are quoted at in Green Lake. 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.
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.
We follow HistoryLink's outline: from the east slope of Phinney Ridge to Interstate 5, north to N 85th Street and south toward N 50th. If you are a block outside, call anyway; we work across North Seattle.
It depends on the job. The city names repointing a chimney as exempt, while SDCI's guide puts most other projects on the permit side of the line. We check with SDCI before starting.
The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. Its territory is four counties: King, Snohomish, Pierce and Kitsap. Fire-safety burn bans are a separate matter and come from the fire marshal.
With an inspection of each chimney at $99 plus tax. Photos and a written quote follow; approve the quote and its total drops by that $99.
Choose a genuine opening on the crew's calendar. We inspect, quote in writing, and hand over a photo record of every repair.
