Wallingford, King County
Crown repair and repointing in Wallingford start at $475. Two measurements produce the quote. The first is the crown: its footprint, and whether it can be saved with a bonded overlay or must be chipped off and cast again. The second is the joints: how many square feet have eroded past the point where they keep water out. A bungalow chimney with a tired crown and one weathered face stays near the starting price. A broad, tall stack repointed on every side does not, especially where we must scaffold from the ground.
Typical investment
From $475
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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 Wallingford home — we'll point you to the right fix.
What we do
The same crew, the same written quote — for Wallingford 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.
Plan books supplied the design of many a North Seattle bungalow, Wallingford's included. The city's survey work has the architect Victor Voorhees offering bungalow drawings for sale by 1907, and Jud Yoho's Craftsman Bungalow Company putting up bungalows and selling them on installments from 1911 to 1918, squarely inside Wallingford's main building surge of 1906-1915. The same report, written about neighboring Fremont, counts stone or brick chimneys among the hallmarks of the Craftsman style. We cite that as a description of a style, not as a census of Wallingford's chimneys; nobody has published one.
Annual precipitation at the University of Washington station has been as low as 22.21 inches (1930) and as high as 50.19 (1968); 34.11 inches is the mean, and it takes some 146 days to fall. On the Lake Union side, Portage Bay's wettest year was 1996, at 51.56 inches. A crown poured in a dry year meets a wet one soon enough.
A crown's job is drainage. It needs slope so that water leaves, an overhang so that drips fall clear of the brick, and a flexible joint at the flue tile, which expands when hot. Where any of the three is missing, water lingers on top of the chimney for much of those 146 days and works down into the joints below. This is why we treat crown and repointing as one job when both are worn: new joints under a leaking crown are wet again by the first winter.
Every masonry repair (crown / repointing) we do in Wallingford includes:
Smoke coming back into the room, or a smell that won't go? Book the inspection first.
Book nowOn brick laid before World War II, the masonry mistake to watch for is a modern one: repointing with a hard, cement-rich mortar. Old joints were soft on purpose, so that movement and moisture passed through the mortar and spared the brick. A hard joint reverses that, and within some winters the brick edges crumble around mortar that still looks perfect. The second mistake is a crown made of leftover mortar, feathered to nothing at the edges. It cracks at the thin rim first. Both are cheap on the day and costly later, and both can be undone.
Red and yellow tags went up on over 1,000 of the region's unreinforced masonry buildings once the 2001 Nisqually earthquake had passed, by the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network's account. Those were buildings, not house chimneys, and we know of no count for Wallingford. The common factor is the material: brick held by mortar alone.
FEMA's chimney advisory makes the connection explicit when it singles out old unreinforced brick chimneys with weakened mortar. Repointing addresses the outer inch or so of each joint. It keeps water out, and water is what weakens the mortar behind. It is maintenance with a real benefit, and it is not reinforcement. Where a probe finds soft, sandy mortar deep in the wall of the stack, we say plainly that repointing will improve the look and the weathering but not the strength, and we describe the structural options instead.
We identify original mortar, later patches and the crown's makeup before choosing materials.
Square feet of joints and the crown's dimensions go into a written, fixed quote.
Joints are opened to sound material, filled in passes and finished to shed water.
The top is rebuilt or overlaid once the courses beneath it are tight.
What this work is quoted at for Wallingford homes — the exact figure comes from the $99 on-site inspection, credited toward the work.
| Service | Price in Wallingford | 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 Wallingford. 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.
Wallingford is a hillside neighborhood north of Lake Union, annexed to Seattle in 1891, on Lake Union, with bungalows and box houses, most of them built between 1906 and the end of the 1920s.
WallingfordKing County, WA · 47.661, -122.334
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. Repointing a chimney is on the city's short list of permit-exempt work, together with painting and cleaning. The work must still comply with the code.
By testing the old joints on site and by the brick itself. The rule is that mortar should be the weaker partner, so it wears instead of the brick.
Yes, as an inspection: $99 plus tax, per chimney. On a masonry job you approve, that $99 has already been paid toward it.
A $99 on-site inspection, a written quote before any work, and photos of every item we touch.
