Chimney sweep near you
Nob Hill and the Northwest District are on our regular rounds, and the work is some of the oldest brick in the city: tall Victorian-era stacks with several unlined flues, swept and relined, plus caps timed around the September swifts.
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Northwest District homes are Victorian, Old Portland style and Craftsman houses, plus early brick apartment blocks, on the alphabet streets between the West Hills and I-405, Nicolai and W Burnside.
A Victorian or Old Portland style house here carries a tall brick stack with a flue for each fireplace and one for the furnace, often none of them lined, and the Craftsman houses that filled in around them are a little younger. The brick apartment buildings have boiler stacks and now dryer vents and gas fireplace vents, while the newer condos mostly have gas or none.
Two things set the district apart. Some 50 blocks form the Alphabet Historic District, listed in 2000 with 478 contributing buildings, so a visible change to a chimney on one of them is worth a call to the city. And Chapman Elementary's chimney hosted the famous Vaux's swift roost for about four decades, so September here is for watching chimneys, not sweeping the ones with birds in them.
The chimney stock in the Northwest District is among the oldest unlined brick we see: tall multi-flue stacks on the Victorians, smaller two-flue stacks on the Craftsman houses, boiler stacks on the brick apartment blocks, and gas vents or nothing in the condos.
A 130-year-old unlined flue can have open joints, a smoke chamber that was never parged and sometimes a passage that was bricked off decades ago and now serves nothing. Swifts favor those flues, because rough brick gives them something to cling to, so a capped chimney and a stainless liner both mean one fewer roost. A flue with birds in it waits, and the cap goes on after they leave.
Old flues, protected birds and a historic district shape what the Northwest District asks of us.
An 1890s Nob Hill flue that is going back into service gets a stainless liner sized to its fireplace, with insulation where the manufacturer requires it, because bare brick this old cannot be trusted to keep heat and gases out of the framing. On a stack with four flues we line the ones you will use and seal the rest at top and bottom so they stop breathing damp air into the house.
In this district the animal call is often swifts, and the answer is to wait: Vaux's swifts are protected, a roosting flock in September is not removed, and we keep the damper shut and schedule the sweep and cap for after they leave in October. Raccoons and squirrels, which do not migrate, are a different job, and after they are out a screened cap closes the door.
Every Victorian-era chimney job here starts with a Level 2 camera inspection, which the trade also recommends, though no law requires it, when one of these houses is sold. The camera shows which flues are open end to end, which were bricked off, and whether the old smoke chamber is holding together. If the house is a contributing building in the historic district, the report also gives you something to show the city if the fix means a visible change.
A cap on an old Nob Hill stack keeps rain out of four open flues and keeps the next generation of swifts, starlings and raccoons from moving in, but the timing matters: we fit caps once the roost has emptied in October, never over birds. On a contributing building in the Alphabet Historic District we match the cap to the chimney's look and keep it low.
The brick apartment buildings and the newer condos along NW 21st and NW 23rd have few wood fireplaces, so the vent work there is dryers: long runs, stacked units and roof terminations that nobody has opened in years. We clean each run from the machine to the outlet, test airflow at the hood and tell the manager which runs are too long or crushed to clean well.
We come into the Northwest District from I-405, along W Burnside St from downtown, or by US 30 and NW Thurman St from the north.
NW 23rd Ave and NW 21st Ave are the busy shopping spines, so we look for parking on the lettered side streets, Lovejoy to Thurman, rather than on the shopping blocks. Tell us if your building has an alley or a rear court, and on the apartment blocks give us the roof access and the dryer room before we arrive.
Captain John H. Couch started the district's alphabetical street names in 1865 with his first subdivision, and the Simpsons borrowed several of them for characters, Lovejoy and Quimby among them.
NW 23rd Ave, nicknamed Trendy-third, is the heart of Nob Hill, which centers on NW 23rd and Lovejoy.
The Alphabet Historic District was listed on the National Register on November 16, 2000, with 478 contributing buildings across about 50 blocks, and the city designates it a historic district as well.
For about forty years, until 2024, Vaux's swifts roosted in the Chapman Elementary chimney every evening from mid-August to mid-October, in flocks estimated from 1,700 to 35,000, and around 2003 donors funded a separate heating system so the chimney could be left to the birds.
About 85 percent of the district's households were renters in 2000.
Yes, from the base of the West Hills to I-405 and from Nicolai down to Burnside, houses, condos and apartment buildings alike. The posted price applies on the alphabet streets the same as anywhere else, the trip is folded into the job price whenever we do the work, and a chimney inside the Alphabet Historic District costs the same to sweep as one outside it.
No, and nobody should, because those are most likely Vaux's swifts. The swifts are a protected migratory species that roosts in rough old chimneys on the way south, and a roosting flock is left alone until it moves on. Keep the damper closed, skip the fireplace for a few weeks, and the flock usually moves on by mid-October; we then sweep, inspect and fit a screened cap so next year's birds pick another chimney.
Start with a Level 2 inspection that runs the camera down all three flues, which tells you what each one is: open, bricked off, cracked, or shared with another. On a stack this old, expect missing liners, an unparged smoke chamber and open joints. From there the usual path is a stainless liner in the fireplace you will use, the other flues sealed, one cap over the top, and a look at bracing while the scaffold is up.
Not necessarily, but ask before anything visible changes. Historic review in the district is aimed at visible exterior changes on contributing buildings; a sweep, a liner inside the flue or repointing in matching mortar leaves the street view as it was, while shortening the stack, rebuilding in a different brick or taking it down is the kind of change to run past the city's historic resources staff first. We supply the photos and written findings to take with you.
Yes, the county rule covers the Northwest District, and it reaches wildfire smoke days too, since the county has called summer restrictions. A red day puts out every wood and pellet fire for the noon to noon window for every household without a county exemption. On smoke days an open damper is also a path for outside air into the house, one more reason to keep the damper working.
It can be, but let the camera decide before the demolition does. A Level 2 inspection through the flue from the top tells you whether the chimney behind that brick is intact and whether it was ever lined. If it checks out, the path is a stainless liner and a rebuilt or parged smoke chamber; if the stack has shifted or the flue is shared with the furnace, the answer is a gas insert or a different plan.
Run the name through the state lookup our contractor-check guide walks you through, and read what the results do and do not tell you. Then ask the questions that matter for a house this old: how many unlined multi-flue stacks have they relined, will the report show you the inside of each flue, and is the price fixed before the visit. On an 1890s roof, the answer to the first question is the one to listen to.
West of the district the same crew climbs to Forest Heights and the Southwest Hills, and across the river it covers the North Portland bluff.
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.