Chimney sweep near you
We work all over Cully, where big lots, pre-war houses and 1950s ranches put two jobs at the top of the list: sweeping and checking wood stoves and inserts, and repairing end-wall ranch chimneys that stand in the weather on three sides.
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Cully's homes are small pre-war houses on large lots and 1950s and 1960s ranches, a mix left from the semi-rural years before Portland annexed the neighborhood, which is named for the English stonemason Thomas Cully.
The pre-war houses carry simple brick chimneys built for a fireplace or a stove and an oil furnace, often unlined, but much of the housing is 1950s and 1960s ranches, and a ranch chimney is a different animal: usually one masonry fireplace with a clay tile flue, built into an end wall so the stack is outside the house with three faces in the weather.
Big lots and a semi-rural past mean a wood stove is a real possibility in a Cully house, which brings Oregon's home-sale rule on uncertified stoves into play at closing time. The recent townhome and affordable housing infill mostly has no fireplace at all, and with tree cover around 19 percent, moss is a smaller problem here than under the canopy closer in.
Two chimneys define Cully: the small unlined brick stack on a pre-war house, and the exterior end-wall chimney on a 1950s or 1960s ranch, tile lined, with a wide shoulder at the firebox and a tall narrow stack above it.
An exterior chimney never gets warm the way an interior one does, so its tile cools the smoke faster and builds creosote sooner; outside, three faces of brick take the rain and the freeze, and the shoulder where the chimney steps in is where water sits first. Where a stove or insert has gone into one of these fireplaces, the question is whether a liner went in with it.
Wood stoves, exterior ranch chimneys and the odd unlined pre-war stack shape the calls Cully houses produce.
A Cully house heating with a wood stove or an insert in the ranch fireplace gets its flue swept yearly, through the liner where there is one and with the insert pulled where there is not, and the stove itself gets its baffle, door gasket and connector pipe checked at the same time. Exterior chimneys build creosote faster than interior ones because the smoke cools sooner, so these flues are worth a look every season.
Open fireplaces in the 1950s and 1960s ranches get the yearly sweep and Level 1 look-over, with attention to the smoke shelf behind the damper, where an end-wall chimney collects the rain that blows in, and to the tile joints a camera can see from the firebox. The pre-war houses get the same visit plus a look down the old furnace flue.
An exterior chimney on a Cully ranch has three sides in the weather and a shoulder that holds water, so the mortar joints open and the brick spalls lower down than on an interior stack, sometimes right at the shoulder. We repoint with a matched mortar, replace the spalled brick, re-slope the shoulder so it sheds, and finish with a breathable repellent.
Selling or buying in Cully means two checks at once: the Level 2 camera inspection recommended (though not required by law) at a transfer, and the label check, DEQ or EPA, on any wood stove or insert in the house or the shop out back, because an uncertified one has to come out and be destroyed before closing, or within 30 days after if the buyer takes it on in writing. The report covers both so nobody finds out at the signing table.
Caps go missing in Cully for the usual reasons, wind and rust, and a tile-lined ranch flue with no cap takes rain straight down to the damper, where the rust starts. We fit a stainless cap with a spark screen sized so it does not choke the draft, and on a house with a stove liner a cap made for that liner, which also keeps raccoons out of a chimney that stands on the quiet side of the house.
Cully is reached from I-205 by way of Killingsworth or Columbia, from I-84 up Sandy and NE 42nd Ave, and from the inner neighborhoods straight out NE Killingsworth St or NE Prescott St, with NE Cully Blvd cutting across on the diagonal.
Lots here are bigger than closer in, which often leaves room to set the ladder from the yard on the chimney side. Tell us when you book whether the stove or fireplace is in the house or in a shop or outbuilding, and whether the flue is masonry or a metal pipe, so we bring the right brushes.
The neighborhood takes its name from Thomas Cully, an English stonemason who settled here early, and NE Cully Blvd crosses it on a diagonal.
Rose City Cemetery, founded in 1906 in Cully's southwest corner, includes a Japanese Cemetery maintained by the Japanese Ancestral Society of Portland.
Cully has the least parkland per capita of any Portland neighborhood; Thomas Cully Park, whose community garden opened on October 18, 2012, and Whitaker Ponds Nature Park are its main green spaces.
About 61 percent of Cully households owned their homes in 2020, and tree canopy covers roughly 19 percent of the neighborhood.
Cully was a census-designated place before Portland annexed it, and Cully Boulevard, Sacajawea Park and the Rigler Community Garden are the landmarks people name.
Yes, every part of Cully in both ZIP codes, from the Columbia Boulevard edge down to Prescott, along both sides of Cully Boulevard. A stove in a shop building is covered on the same visit as the house. The job is booked at the posted price, and the drive is part of it once the work is on the calendar.
Book in August or early September and the choice of dates is yours. After the first cold snap in October the whole east side calls at once and the wait grows. A stove that heats the house all winter is worth getting done in late summer anyway, because if the sweep finds a cracked liner or a worn gasket there is still time to fix it before you need the heat.
The fireplace flue is brushed from firebox to cap with the opening sealed and a vacuum running. The smoke shelf is cleaned out and the damper is checked. The tile joints get a look with a light and, when something looks off, the camera. Because an end-wall chimney stands outside, we also walk around it and photograph the shoulder and the weather faces, so you see the brick as well as the flue.
Not without a liner. A stove connected to an unlined brick flue sends hot gases into a passage that is too large, too cold and full of open joints, which is how creosote builds and how heat reaches the framing. The right setup is a stainless liner sized to the stove's outlet, insulated and run to the top of the chimney under a cap, once a Level 2 camera inspection shows the old brick can carry it.
It applies unless the county has approved an exemption for your household, and heating only with wood or pellets is exactly what the exemption is for. You apply before you need it, there is no fee, and it expires every September 30, so renew it each fall. Without it, a red day means no fire from noon to noon, in any month the county calls one. Our wood burning rules guide links the form.
Yes, Oregon's removal rule covers every used wood stove or insert on the property, including one in a garage, workshop or outbuilding. If the stove has no DEQ or EPA label on the back it is uncertified and must be removed and destroyed, by the seller before closing unless the buyer agrees in writing to do it within 30 days after. Pellet stoves, antique stoves and open fireplaces are exempt.
Run them through the state lookup using our contractor-check guide, which shows the steps and what a clean result looks like. Do it before the first visit rather than after. Then ask two practical questions: is the price posted before anyone comes out, and will you get the photos from inside your own flue. For stove work, add a third: will the liner be sized to the stove's outlet rather than whatever is on the truck.
Killingsworth, Prescott and Sandy carry the same crew from Cully into Concordia, the Alameda ridge and the neighborhoods out toward the airport.
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.