Chimney sweep near you
We sweep, repair and inspect chimneys across Beaumont-Wilshire, from the tall decorative stacks on its Tudor houses to the plainer bungalow chimneys south of Fremont. Crown work, repointing and camera checks of the original fireboxes lead the list.
Updated
Beaumont-Wilshire's homes are early 1900s Tudors, Craftsman houses and bungalows south of Fremont Street in Beaumont, platted in 1910, and 1920s and postwar houses north of it in Wilshire, platted in 1921 around NE 33rd and Skidmore.
Beaumont was platted as part of the Rose City Park subdivision, and its houses got brick chimneys that served an open fireplace plus a coal or oil furnace, bare brick inside on the oldest. The Tudor chimneys are the showpieces: tall, with patterned brick and stepped tops that look wonderful and shed water badly.
The 1920s Wilshire plat houses north of Fremont were more often given clay tile liners from the start, and the postwar houses farther north more often got one tile-lined masonry fireplace. The whole neighborhood rides the Alameda Ridge, so a house stepped down the slope needs a chimney tall enough to clear the uphill roof, which makes for an exposed stack that is hard to judge from the ground.
The Tudor chimney is the Beaumont-Wilshire specialty: a tall stack with decorative brick patterns, sometimes two or three flues under one stepped top, built unlined on the earliest houses and serving one open fireplace and the furnace below.
Decorative brickwork has more edges and exposed joints than a plain stack, and every joint is a place for rain to get in, so the tops of these chimneys go first: open mortar, spalled brick on the rain side, and crowns that are often thin to keep the profile. Inside, the 1920s fireboxes can show cracked firebrick and crumbling refractory mortar.
Patterned Tudor tops and ridge-side stacks are why repointing, crowns and firebox repair sit on the Beaumont-Wilshire list, with camera inspections and sweeps beside them.
Repointing a patterned Tudor chimney is slow work, because the joints are many and the look has to survive the repair: we match mortar color and joint profile, replace spalled brick with reclaimed units of the same size, and leave the stepped top reading the way it was laid. Done before the brick faces pop, it saves a rebuild.
The crowns on these decorative stacks were often cast thin to keep the stepped profile, and a thin crown cracks through within a few decades of Portland rain and freezing nights. We rebuild them thicker, projecting past the brick with a drip groove underneath, and a flexible sealant at the flue tile so the clay can move without opening a gap.
A 1920s firebox in a Beaumont-Wilshire house can show cracked firebrick, a crumbling back wall and a rough, corbelled smoke chamber that turns smoke back into the room. We rebuild the firebrick with refractory mortar and parge the smoke chamber smooth so the fireplace draws the way it should.
A house stepped down the Alameda Ridge carries a stack that nobody can judge from the sidewalk, so the Level 2 camera inspection, with the roof pass and the flue scan, is how a Beaumont-Wilshire buyer learns what is above the roofline and inside it. You keep the images.
A sweep on a Beaumont Tudor means brushes sized to a flue that may be taller than the ones around it, a vacuum on the hearth, and a look at the furnace flue sharing the stack. The Level 1 check we do while we are there is where a cracked crown gets noticed a winter earlier than it otherwise would.
Beaumont-Wilshire is reached from I-84 up NE 33rd or NE 42nd, or along NE Fremont St from either direction, and Beaumont Village, the shops on Fremont between 42nd and 50th, is the landmark we steer by.
The ridge streets climb and curve, so let us know at booking whether your driveway slopes, where the chimney sits on the house, and whether the lot steps down from the street. A tall stack on the downhill side can need a longer ladder or roof access from the uphill side, and knowing that ahead of time keeps the visit to one trip.
Land between NE Fremont and Prescott from NE 42nd to 52nd was annexed into Portland in 1928, seven years after the Wilshire plat was filed.
Beaumont Village, the business strip on NE Fremont between 42nd and 50th, holds Fremont Fest in early August.
Beaumont Middle School opened in 1914, and the building it uses today was finished in 1926.
Wilshire Park covers 14.83 acres of mature trees, playgrounds and picnic areas.
The Alameda Ridge under the neighborhood is a Missoula Flood deposit that rises about 100 to 150 feet, which is why ridge-top lots have views and sloped driveways.
Yes, both halves, Beaumont south of Fremont and Wilshire north of it, and all three ZIP codes the neighborhood touches. Ridge lots and flat blocks pay the same posted figure for a service, and there is no mileage line on the invoice when we do the work. If your house steps down the slope, mention it so the right ladder comes along.
Yes, and keeping the pattern is the point of doing it carefully. We repoint one section at a time with mortar matched to the original color and joint shape, replace only the brick that has spalled, using salvaged brick of the same size where we can, and photograph the stack before and after. A full rebuild above the roofline copies the original coursing brick for brick.
Height is not the problem; the path from the firebox to the flue is. A 1920s fireplace with a rough, stepped smoke chamber, a firebox opening that is too big for its flue, or a damper that no longer opens all the way will push smoke back into the room no matter how tall the stack. Keep it cold until we have looked; a smoke chamber parge or a damper fix is the usual answer.
The phones get busy with the first cold rain in October and stay busy into December across Northeast Portland. A Beaumont-Wilshire owner who wants a sweep or a camera check before the first fire does well to book in August or September, when the roof is dry, the schedule is open, and a repair found on the roof can still be done before the weather turns.
Yes, because yellow is advisory: the county is asking you to consider limiting burning because air quality is heading the wrong way. A red day is the ban, a 24-hour stretch that begins at noon, with exemptions on grounds such as wood-only heat and lower incomes. The county can call either one in any month, including wildfire smoke season. Our guide to wood burning rules in the metro shows where to look up the day's color.
A Level 2 camera inspection, the level recommended when a house is sold, though not legally required. On a 1925 Beaumont-Wilshire house that means the firebox, the damper, the smoke chamber and every foot of flue on camera, plus the crown, the decorative top courses and the flashing from the roof. If the house steps down the ridge, we also check whether the stack is tall enough and braced for its height.
Look the company up in the state's public contractor database first; our write-up on checking an Oregon contractor lists the steps. Then ask whether the camera footage from your flue comes with the visit and whether the price was posted before anyone climbed a ladder. On a tall ridge-side stack, the footage and the roof photos are your only view of what was done.
Fremont Street carries the crew west into Alameda and east toward Rose City Park, with Hollywood below the ridge and Cully farther east.
Call with what the fireplace is doing, or text a photo of the opening and one of the chimney top, and we will name the service and its posted price before we come out.