Chimney sweep near you
We cover Brentwood-Darlington from Duke St to the county line, where postwar houses have one tile-lined fireplace or none and some have added a wood stove. The work is sweeps, stove service and stove label checks ahead of a sale under Oregon's home-sale rule.
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Much of Brentwood-Darlington is small late 1940s and 1950s homes built while the area was unincorporated Multnomah County; it was homesteaded from 1882, named Errol Heights as a neighborhood in 1974 and joined Portland only in 1986.
Brentwood-Darlington's postwar houses were small and plain and built quickly, some with a single masonry fireplace and a clay tile liner, many with no fireplace at all, which is why a freestanding stove or an insert is part of the picture here. The pre-war houses on the large lots typically carry brick chimneys built for a stove and an oil furnace.
Newer infill houses on divided lots mostly have gas fireplaces or none, and tree canopy covers only about 22 percent of the neighborhood, so a Brentwood-Darlington chimney stands in the open more often than under trees. What we check first is the cap, the crown and the flashing rather than a moss-covered face.
The chimney stock in Brentwood-Darlington is mostly postwar: a short brick stack with one tile-lined fireplace flue, or no chimney at all and a metal stovepipe added later, with older brick on the pre-war houses out on the big lots.
A single tile-lined flue from 1950 is a simple system when it has a cap and a sound crown, and a leaky one when it does not, since rain down an open tile rusts the damper and soaks the smoke shelf. A stove or insert added later needs its own liner sized to its outlet, and if it is an uncertified model, Oregon's home-sale rule will catch up with it.
Sweeps of postwar tile flues, stove service, caps, sale inspections and dryer vents make up the Brentwood-Darlington list.
A 1950s Brentwood-Darlington fireplace with its one tile-lined flue gets a sweep as needed, usually each fall, with the Level 1 look-over of the firebox, damper and tile and photos from inside the flue. Because a chimney on a one-story house is short, the draft is weaker than on a two-story house, and we check that the flue is clear all the way to the top rather than just brushed.
A freestanding stove on a hearth pad or an insert in a postwar firebox gets its pipe or liner cleaned, the baffle and firebox brushed out, the gasket checked and the cap cleared, and we tell you whether the unit is an uncertified model so the home-sale rule does not surprise you at closing. Where a stove vents into an unlined brick stack on a pre-war house, we say so.
A postwar stack in Brentwood-Darlington often has its tile sticking up bare, and with little tree cover there is nothing between the open flue and the rain. A stainless cap with a spark screen is the smallest job we do here and the one that heads off the rusted-damper call a few winters later.
A house here selling with a stove or insert needs two things settled before closing: whether the appliance is labeled by DEQ or the EPA, and whether the flue behind it is sound, which takes a Level 2 camera inspection. We deliver the footage and a written note to the buyer and a clear answer on the removal rule to the seller.
The infill houses on divided lots mostly have no flue to brush, but their dryers vent through long runs to a hood on an outside wall, and the lint builds until a load takes two cycles. We clean the run end to end and confirm the hood flap closes on its own.
Brentwood-Darlington is reached from I-205 by way of SE Johnson Creek Blvd or from McLoughlin Blvd (OR 99E), with SE 52nd Ave, SE 72nd Ave and SE 82nd Ave running north and south, and SE Flavel St and SE Duke St crossing them.
Lots here run larger than in the inner neighborhoods, so tell us whether a driveway gets us close. A one-story postwar roof usually puts the chimney within reach of a shorter ladder from the yard; tell us when you book whether the stove vents through the roof or the wall, and whether the fireplace chimney is on the street side or the back.
Homesteading in what is now Brentwood-Darlington began in 1882; the area was designated a neighborhood in 1974 as Errol Heights, and Portland annexed it in 1986 and gave it the current name.
The Apostolic Faith church set up its international headquarters here in 1920, and the neighborhood's first fire department arrived in 1947.
The boundaries run from SE 45th Ave on the west to SE 82nd Ave on the east, with SE Duke St on the north and the county line along SE Harney Dr and SE Clatsop St on the south.
Tree canopy covers about 22 percent of the neighborhood.
Brentwood Park opened in 1951, Flavel Park in 1953, Errol Heights Park in 1966, Harney Park in 1979 and Hazeltine Park, named for longtime neighborhood leader Dick Hazeltine, in 2001; the Brentwood Darlington Community Center and the PSU Learning Gardens Laboratory are the other anchors.
Yes, right to the county line. Everything between SE 45th and SE 82nd, from Duke south to Harney and Clatsop, is inside our regular Brentwood-Darlington route at the posted price, with no travel line on the invoice when we do the work. If your address is just over the line in Clackamas County, we cover that side too under the neighboring area pages.
A Level 2 camera inspection first, then whatever it shows. On a 1950s tile-lined flue the common findings are an open tile with no cap, a damper rusted by years of rain, and a smoke shelf full of debris, all of which are routine to fix; a cracked tile or a shifted joint means a liner before any fire. Keep it cold until the footage comes back, and plan on a sweep as part of the same visit.
Check the back of the stove for an Oregon DEQ or EPA label; a stove without one is uncertified, and a UL safety sticker does not count. Oregon's home-sale law is what applies: an uncertified stove or insert has to be removed and destroyed when the house sells, so the question becomes one for your timeline. Either way, a Brentwood-Darlington stove should vent through its own liner, which the camera confirms.
Mostly height: the short chimney on a one-story postwar Brentwood-Darlington house produces less draft than a two-story flue. That makes it more sensitive to a cold flue, a partly closed damper, a dirty screen on the cap, or a kitchen fan running at the same time. A sweep and a camera check rule out blockage and creosote; after that, the fix is often warming the flue before lighting and cracking a window.
It applies, but your household can be exempt. Multnomah County grants exemptions on grounds such as wood or pellet fuel being the only way to heat the main living space, or income at or below the county threshold, and the exemption must be requested and then renewed each year by September 30. Without one, a red day stops the stove from noon to noon. Our wood burning rules guide covers how to apply.
Yes, and booking the two together is the simplest way to do it. The fireplace flue gets brushes, a vacuum, the Level 1 look-over and photos; the stove gets its connector or liner cleaned, the baffle and firebox brushed out and the gasket checked, each priced as its own posted line. Doing both at once means one ladder setup and one set of photos covering everything that burns in the house.
Read our guide to checking an Oregon contractor, which covers the state lookup and what the record shows. Then ask whether the price is posted ahead of the visit and whether you will get the camera footage of your own flue. For a Brentwood-Darlington house with a stove, ask one more: do they service stoves and inserts, or only open fireplaces, because the stove is where the risk often sits here.
From Brentwood-Darlington the same crew heads north into Woodstock and Foster-Powell, east across 82nd into Lents, and west to Eastmoreland and Reed.
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.