Chimney sweep near you
Yes, we cover Happy Valley, and the calls follow the hill: chase cover leaks, sweeps and panel repairs on factory-built fireplaces up Mount Scott and Scouters Mountain, and gas vent service and dryer vents in the newest streets.
Updated
Happy Valley had about 1,500 residents in 1990 and 23,733 by 2020, so most of its houses, and their chimneys, are younger than 1990. The late 1990s and 2000s subdivisions climbing Mount Scott and Scouters Mountain commonly came with factory-built metal fireplaces, not brick.
On a view lot the fireplace often sits on the downhill wall, and the chase that carries its pipe can run two full stories to clear the roofline. That puts a sheet-metal chase cover, a storm collar and a long run of flashing at the highest, windiest point of the house, and those three parts are where Happy Valley leaks begin.
Houses built since 2010 lean to direct-vent gas fireplaces, and some have no fireplace at all, which leaves the dryer duct as the thing we clean. The exception is the scatter of pre-1990 houses on the old large lots, where a masonry chimney or a wood stove still turns up and gets the older-house treatment.
A Happy Valley chimney is often a framed box, not a brick one: a wood-framed chase sided to match the house, a listed metal fireplace at the bottom, Class A pipe up the middle and a chase cover with a storm collar on top.
The failure order is cover first, then collar, then the refractory panels inside the firebox. A flat galvanized cover ponds water, rusts through at the seam and drips onto the pipe; a storm collar loses its sealant and lets rain run down the outside of the pipe into the chase; and the firebox panels crack from heat cycling, which is a replace-the-panel job, not a masonry one.
Happy Valley houses put the chase ahead of the brick, and these five jobs are what hillside chases and their vents call for.
A stain on the ceiling beside a Happy Valley fireplace usually traces to the top of the chase: a rusted-through chase cover, a storm collar with failed sealant, or step flashing that pulled away where the tall chase meets a steep roof. We replace the cover in stainless with a cross-break so it sheds water, reseal or replace the collar, and redo the flashing rather than caulk over it.
A factory-built fireplace in a 2004 Happy Valley house warrants the same Level 2 inspection a brick one does at a sale or after a change, and the camera goes up the Class A pipe looking for crushed sections, separated joints and rust. Inside the firebox we check the refractory panels for cracks and crumbling faces, which call for new panels before the next fire.
Some of the houses built since 2010 across Happy Valley put the laundry room away from an outside wall, which means a dryer duct with two or three elbows before it reaches daylight. Those elbows load with lint, the dryer runs long and hot, and a cleaning from the dryer to the outside hood is what we do, showing you the lint afterward.
Rain caps on the metal flues up here can come loose or go missing, and a missing cap on a Class A pipe lets rain straight down onto the fireplace and birds into the chase. We fit the cap the pipe's maker lists for that brand and size, not a generic one, and we add a screened cap to any open flue on the older masonry houses.
The pre-1990 houses on the old large lots are where Happy Valley's wood stoves live, some of them the main heat for the house. We sweep the stove and its connector pipe, check the label on the back that decides what happens at a sale, and look at the Class A or masonry chimney above it.
Sunnyside Road is the way into Happy Valley from the I-205 interchange, and from the Clackamas side OR 212 and OR 224 bring us in along the Clackamas Highway.
King Road, SE 122nd, SE 162nd and SE 172nd Avenues climb from there into the subdivisions. The streets on Mount Scott and Scouters Mountain are steep and the driveways steeper, so a note about where the truck can park level, and which side of the house the chase is on, saves time when we arrive with a tall ladder.
Christian and Matilda Deardorff took up 640 acres here under the Donation Land Claim Act, and the valley was once called Deardorff Valley and Christilla Valley before it was Happy Valley. Happy Valley incorporated in 1965 and grew from 1,519 residents in 1990 to 23,733 in 2020.
Mount Scott, an extinct volcano in the Boring Lava Field, is the high point of the city at 1,050 feet, and Scouters Mountain belongs to the same field.
Clackamas Town Center sits in unincorporated Clackamas County but carries a Happy Valley mailing address. The September 2020 Riverside Fire burned about 138,000 acres in Clackamas County during the smoke event that gave Portland its worst air quality on record.
Yes, all of 97086 is in our area, inside Happy Valley city limits and on the unincorporated streets near Clackamas Town Center with a Happy Valley mailing address. The visit and the posted price are the same either way, with no trip charge when we do the work. The one thing that changes by address is the outdoor burn permit, which the city issues inside its limits.
Same week in most cases, and a chase leak is one we try to move up because water sitting on a metal fireplace rusts it from the outside in. Put a pan under the drip, keep the fireplace cold, and send a photo of the chase top if you can see it from the yard. November fills fast on the hill, so a text with the photo gets you a price before the visit.
Yes, a factory-built fireplace is swept through its metal pipe with brushes sized to that pipe, and the firebox and damper are cleaned the same as masonry. What differs is what we look for: refractory panels inside the firebox that have cracked or crumbled, rust at the pipe joints, and the chase cover and storm collar on top. Panels and covers are replaceable parts, and replacing them is a normal part of owning one.
It needs a vent and burner check rather than a brush. Gas combustion makes water vapor and acids that attack the vent liner over time, so we inspect the vent run and termination, look at the logs and the glass seal, and clean the white film off the glass without scraping it. Gas valve and pilot work goes to a gas technician, and we say so rather than guess at it.
It can, if the damper is open or does not seal, because an open flue is simply a hole from outside air into the living room. On a smoky day close the damper fully, or have a top-sealing damper fitted on a flue whose throat damper has warped, and run the house on recirculated air. Smoke season is also when DEQ asks everyone to skip wood fires, which keeps the flue closed for both reasons.
Yes, legally: Portland's red day rule is Multnomah County's, and our research found no Clackamas County or Happy Valley equivalent. What reaches Happy Valley is the DEQ advisory for the whole airshed, and on the day Portland is red the air over Mount Scott is the same air, so the sensible answer is to wait. Our wood burning guide lays out the county differences side by side.
That is the chase cover, the sheet-metal lid over the framed chase, and rust streaks down the siding mean it is failing. Builders in the 1990s and 2000s commonly used flat galvanized covers that pond water and eventually rust through at the seams. We replace it with a stainless cover with a cross-break and a drip edge, and reseal the storm collar where the pipe passes through.
From Happy Valley the same crew drops down the hill to Clackamas, Gresham and the Lents side of Portland and heads out OR 212 to Damascus, Boring and Sandy.
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.