Green Lake, King County
Masonry repair on a Green Lake chimney is priced from $475. That is a crown resurfaced or a limited area of joints repointed. A crown broken out and recast, or repointing across all four faces of a tall stack, goes as high as $3,200. Square footage of joint, height off the roof and the hardness of the mortar that has to be matched are what separate one quote from another. We price the work after a $99 plus tax inspection, a charge that is credited back against the masonry bill on an approved quote.
Typical investment
From $475
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$99 plus tax, deducted when you approve the repair
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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.
A Level 1 review of everything reachable, raised to a Level 2 camera scan when a question stays open
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The whole flue brushed, using heads picked for the liner's size and shape
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A photo assessment that distinguishes surface wear from structural damage
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Camera survey and measurements taken before any liner is chosen
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Measurement of each flue, or of the crown when a single cap will span several
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Glass removed, cleaned and checked for a sound gasket
Learn moreRanges shown for orientation — the exact figure is written up on-site, after the inspection.
Much of the early housing in this part of Seattle came out of catalogs. The city's survey of Fremont residential buildings, which covers the era when Green Lake was also filling in, records that architect Victor Voorhees was selling bungalow plans in 1907 and that his Western Home Builder offered 125 designs, while Jud Yoho's Craftsman Bungalow Company spent 1911 to 1918 building bungalows and selling them on installment. The same report describes the Tudor Revival houses of 1900 to 1940 as carrying massive, prominent chimneys, usually on the street side. None of this tells us what stands on your lot. It does explain why we test the mortar on an older Green Lake chimney before mixing anything: joints laid in those decades are often softer than modern cement, and the repair has to match them.
Oregon State University Extension puts roof moss down to two things together, moisture and shade, and notes that a cleaned surface turns green again if it gets no more sun than before. Mortar joints on the north face of a chimney offer both, plus a rough surface to grip. Winter supplies the rest: WeatherSpark finds Seattle skies gray roughly 71 percent of the time in January, its cloudiest month, so a Green Lake stack that got wet in November has little chance to dry before spring.
For masonry work the order of operations matters. Moss is brushed off dry and the joints are raked clean before any new mortar is mixed, since repointing over organic matter leaves a joint that never bonds. Where a crown stays green year after year we say so in the report, because the cure for that is light and drainage, not more cement.
Every masonry repair (crown / repointing) we do in Green Lake includes:
Smoke coming back into the room, or a smell that won't go? Book the inspection first.
Book nowFew chimney jobs are addressed by name in city rules; repointing is. Repointing a chimney appears on Seattle's no-permit list in the company of painting and cleaning. Exempt does not mean unregulated: the code says such work has to comply all the same. For a homeowner that removes a paperwork step from the most common masonry repair. It does not cover everything a mason might do on the same visit, so for anything larger than repointing we check with SDCI before we start.
We check how hard the existing joints are so the new mortar is no stronger than the brick it holds.
Failed joints are removed to solid material, by hand near fragile brick.
Joints are filled and tooled; the crown is repaired or rebuilt with a slope that sheds water.
The work is kept damp as needed while it cures, then photographed and shown to you.
What this work is quoted at for Green Lake homes — the exact figure comes from the $99 on-site inspection, credited toward the work.
| Service | Price in Green Lake | What that covers |
|---|---|---|
| Masonry Repair (Crown / Repointing) | From $475 | Crown work, repointing and tuckpointing by surface area |
| 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 |
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.
Seattle's residential code spells out the reinforcement a new masonry chimney must have in the city's seismic design categories. Under R1003.3.1, a chimney no wider than 40 inches gets four No. 4 bars running vertically without a break. Under R1003.4.1 two straps of 3/16-by-1-inch steel tie the stack to the house framing, and every strap is fastened to four joists.
Those rules describe new construction. After the Nisqually earthquake of 2001, red or yellow tags went up on over a thousand of the region's unreinforced masonry buildings, the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network reports. Repointing a Green Lake chimney restores the bond between its bricks; it does not add bars or straps that were never there. We are plain about that limit when we quote masonry work on an older stack.
Green Lake is a neighborhood wrapped around a 323-acre lake park, part of Seattle since 1891, on Green Lake, with houses that went up after the streetcar circled the lake in 1902.
Green LakeKing County, WA · 47.679, -122.328
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.
Repointing renews the mortar while the bricks stay where they are. A rebuild takes courses down and relays them, and is needed once bricks themselves are loose or broken.
Modern cement mortar is harder than much early brick. Packed into old joints, it forces moisture and movement into the brick faces, which then flake.
The city names repointing a chimney on its list of permit-exempt work, while requiring the work to meet code. Larger masonry jobs are a separate question we take to SDCI.
A $99 on-site inspection, a written quote before any work, and photos of every item we touch.
