Chimney sweep near you
We serve all of Tualatin, which grew from 750 people in 1970 to 15,000 by 1990, and the calls follow those decades: sweeps and stuck dampers on 1970s brick, chase cover leaks on 1980s metal, and long dryer vents.
Updated
Tualatin's fireplaces come from the transition decades between brick and metal. The 1970s tracts were commonly built with a masonry fireplace and a brick chimney, and by the 1980s many builders had moved to a factory-built firebox in a wood-framed chase.
A chase is a framed box sided to match the house, with the metal flue pipe inside it and a flat sheet metal cover on top, and those covers are now 35 to 45 years old. Rain pools on a cover with no slope, rust works through, and the first thing a homeowner notices is a brown streak down the siding or a stain on the ceiling beside the fireplace.
The 1990s neighborhoods are commonly factory-built or gas, and pre-war chimneys are rare apart from a few early houses such as the John Sweek House near the old Bridgeport crossing, so an unlined brick flue is the exception here; the common Tualatin job is a sweep and a Level 1 look at a 1970s brick fireplace, or a chase cover, flashing and panel check on a 1980s metal one.
Walk one Tualatin street from the 1970s and the next from the 1980s and you will see both chimney types: a brick stack with a concrete crown on the older houses, and a sided chase with a round metal cap on the newer ones.
The brick fails the way fifty-year-old brick does here, at the crown, the joints and the damper, with a throat damper rusted stiff by rain coming down an uncapped flue. The chase fails at the top: a rusted cover, a storm collar that has slipped, flashing that has lifted off the siding, and a pipe that runs cold inside an uninsulated chase and glazes with creosote.
Tualatin calls split between the brick side of the street and the metal side, with dryer vents and buyer inspections on both.
A brown streak down the chase siding or a wet patch on the ceiling next to a 1980s Tualatin fireplace is usually the chase cover, rusted through after four decades of standing water, or the flashing at the roofline. We fit a new cover broken to a slope so it sheds water, seal a storm collar at the pipe and redo the chase flashing.
A 1970s brick fireplace that still burns wood through the winter gets a yearly sweep, with the Level 1 visual check that comes with it, to keep a tile-lined flue honest: brushes matched to the tile size, the smoke chamber and shelf cleared, the damper checked, and photos of the flue before and after. A flue that shows glaze rather than soot gets a longer visit and a conversation about the wood.
A throat damper in a 1975 Tualatin fireplace has had fifty years of rain down the flue to rust its hinge, and the complaints are a plate that will not seat, cold air pouring down in January and a handle that moves nothing. We free or replace the plate, and when the damper is past saving we fit a top-sealing damper at the flue top, which closes tighter than the original ever did.
Tualatin's two-story tract houses often put the laundry upstairs or deep in the floor plan, so the dryer duct runs a long way to the hood, and the signs are a dryer that runs hot, two cycles for a load of towels and lint at the hood. We clean the run end to end and check that the hood flap opens freely.
A buyer in Tualatin usually cannot tell from the listing whether the house has brick or a chase, and the Level 2 camera inspection settles it along with everything that matters: tile condition on the brick, panel and pipe condition on the metal, and whether the previous owner's insert has its own liner. The photos go to you and your agent.
I-5 at the Nyberg Street exit puts us in the center of Tualatin, and from there Boones Ferry Road, Martinazzi Avenue and Tualatin-Sherwood Road reach the neighborhoods on either side; I-205 ends at I-5 here, which is the way in from Clackamas County.
Tualatin-Sherwood Road is the slow stretch at commute hours, and SW 65th Avenue, Boones Ferry Road and Martinazzi Avenue sort the rest of the city. The 1980s cul-de-sacs are tight, so say where a van can stand, and say whether the chase sits at the front or the rear of the house, because it changes which ladder we bring.
Tualatin was called Bridgeport after a bridge went up in 1853 and incorporated under its present name in 1913. The West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta has been held in Tualatin since 2004.
A mastodon fossil dug up in 1962 on what became a Fred Meyer parking lot is displayed in the lobby of the Tualatin Public Library.
Bridgeport Village and its 18-screen theater opened in early 2005, and Sunn Musical Equipment Company was based in Tualatin from the 1960s through the 1980s.
Residents give directions by Tualatin Commons, Browns Ferry Park, Legacy Meridian Park Hospital and Tualatin High School, and a small part of the city lies across the line in Clackamas County.
Yes, all of 97062 is inside our service area, and the few Tualatin streets that lie in Clackamas County are booked exactly like the rest of the city. The sweep, the inspection and the chase cover replacement each carry a posted price, and the drive is not billed separately when we do the work. Bridgeport Village and the neighborhoods around Tualatin Commons are both routine stops.
Look at the chimney from the street. A brick stack with a concrete crown and a square clay tile or a steel cap on top is masonry; a box sided to match the house, with a flat metal lid and a round cap, is a chase around a factory-built unit. Inside, a factory-built firebox has metal walls behind the refractory panels and a metal label on a tag inside the opening. Either kind can be swept.
Yes, because the streak means the chase cover has rusted out and water is already inside the chase, running down the pipe and the framing you cannot see. On a 1980s Tualatin house that cover is at the end of its life, and the fix is a new cover broken to a slope with a storm collar sealed at the pipe. Left alone, the framing rots and the drip finds the ceiling.
No city ordinance turned up in our research. Inside Tualatin the Oregon DEQ advisory is what to watch, and on a stagnant, smoky day the sensible move is to leave the fireplace cold. Washington County's red day program, in force November 1 to March 1, covers the unincorporated county plus Hillsboro and Cornelius, which does not include Tualatin city addresses. Our wood burning rules guide shows how to check the day's status before lighting.
Book before October and it is easy. In November you join the queue with everyone across Washington County who lit the first fire and smelled something. Through most of the year a Tualatin sweep lands within the week. If the fireplace smoked, dripped or smelled wrong last winter, say so, because that visit is a camera inspection rather than a sweep and we schedule it ahead of the routine ones.
An open masonry fireplace is exempt from Oregon's stove removal law, so nothing is forced, but two things usually come up. A buyer's inspector may ask for a Level 2 camera inspection, which the chimney trade recommends when a property changes hands, and on a 1978 brick flue it finds cracked tiles and a rusted damper early. If a wood insert was ever added, the law requires an uncertified one to be removed and destroyed at the sale.
Tualatin sits where Washington County meets Clackamas County, so the same route covers Tigard and Sherwood on one side and Lake Oswego, West Linn and Wilsonville on the other.
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.