Level 1 sweep and inspection to the NFPA 211 annual standard - flue, crown, cap, and flashing checked and photographed
Chimney sweep logs do not sweep chimneys. They loosen some creosote - which then falls where a brush and vacuum still have to collect it.
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AfterFast, Reliable Chimney Cap & Crown Across Spokane
A cracked chimney crown or a missing cap in Spokane is never just a cosmetic issue. It’s a water entry point, a draft problem, and in the South Hill and Browne’s Addition neighborhoods, it’s often a shared-flue problem that pulls a neighbor’s wood smoke into your living room. Emberly Chimney Cleaners has inspected and repaired caps and crowns on 38,000+ chimneys since 2009, every one quoted in writing before any work starts. We serve all of Spokane, from the North Side to the South Hill, with crews that know what inversion-season burn bans, Ponderosa pine creosote, and a century of freeze-thaw cycling do to a masonry chimney. Call (980) 580-8641 and we’ll put a written price in your hand before a single brick is touched.
Why Emberly Chimney Cleaners Is Spokane’s Preferred Chimney Cap & Crown Company
Spokane homeowners call us because we show them the problem before we ask for a dollar. Every visit includes a camera scan down the flue, and the photo record is yours to keep. That practice has been our default since 2009, and it’s why the Haven Standard’s Clause 4 requires a documented photo record on every job we do. No flashlight peek masquerading as an inspection. You get images of the crown spalling, the rusted cap, the shared flue pulling smoke from next door.
We’ve worked the Craftsman bungalows on South Hill, the American foursquares in Browne’s Addition, the mid-century ranches out near Mead, and the newer builds in Indian Trail. What we’ve learned is this: Spokane’s housing stock is older, its chimneys are single-wythe brick with original terra cotta tiles, and its winters are hard enough that a failed crown is a heating problem, not a summer to-do item. Corrine Halstead, our owner, has built the company around one promise: a written price, a written scope, and a written warranty before anyone climbs a ladder. That’s Haven Standard Clause 1, and it applies to every cap and crown job in Spokane.
Our Chimney Cap & Crown Services in Spokane
Our Chimney Cap & Crown team handles the full range, from a simple cap replacement to a full crown rebuild on a shared stack. Here’s what we do most often in Spokane.
Cap Installation
Spokane gets over 45 inches of snow a year, and a bare flue is an open pipe for moisture, debris, and animals. We install stainless steel caps from Olympia Chimney and Famco, sized to your flue tile, with proper screening that keeps out birds but doesn’t choke the draft. A cap also stops the wind-driven downdraft that pushes smoke back into the firebox, which matters in neighborhoods where houses sit close together and wind channels between them.
Cap Replacement
Rusted, warped, or undersized caps are common on Spokane’s older homes. A 1920s chimney often has a cap that’s been there for 40 years, and it’s no longer doing anything. We remove the old cap, measure the flue, and fit a new one, typically the same day. If your cap is letting water in, you’ll see it in the photo record we provide before any work starts.
Crown Repair
The crown is the concrete or mortar slab at the top of the chimney, and in Spokane it takes a beating. Repeated freeze-thaw cycles through the shoulder seasons crack the crown, and water follows the cracks down into the flue and the house framing. We repair crowns with Gelco crown coat systems that bond to the existing slab and seal out water. On heavily spalled crowns, we rebuild with proper overhang and a drip edge so water sheds away from the flue instead of running down the brick.
Crown Coating
A crown that’s still structurally sound but starting to show hairline cracks is a prime candidate for crown coating. We apply a flexible, waterproof Gelco coating that moves with the chimney through temperature swings. It’s a fraction of the cost of a full rebuild and buys years, and we’ll show you the before-and-after photos so you can see the difference.
Multi-Flue Cap
Spokane’s South Hill and Browne’s Addition are dense with shared chimneys and attached flues. A multi-flue cap covers the entire chimney top, sealing all flues under one unit. That matters when a neighbor’s fle is venting into the same stack and wind shifts push their exhaust across the crown and into your flue. We fit Copperfield multi-flue caps over original terra cotta tiles, which is exactly what we did on a 1920s Craftsman on South Hill recently.
What happens when you call
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A real person answersNo phone trees - you reach a local pro.
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You get an upfront price rangeHonest numbers before anyone is dispatched.
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A background-checked tech heads outLicensed & insured, dispatched right away.
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You approve before work beginsNothing starts until you say go.
BeforeAfterTrusted Brands We Service in Spokane
We stock parts and materials from Gelco, Olympia Chimney, and Copperfield specifically for Spokane’s older masonry chimneys. That means no week-long wait for a cap or crown coat to ship from a warehouse. When we quote a crown coating or a multi-flue cap on a South Hill foursquare, the materials are already on our truck. We source through Haven’s buying network to keep prices honest, and we’ll tell you exactly which brand we’re installing and why.
Common Chimney Cap & Crown Problems We See in Spokane Homes
- Shared flue cross-draft on South Hill and Browne’s Addition. Attached bungalows and foursquares often share a chimney stack, and when a neighbor’s stove fires up, their exhaust can push through a cracked crown into your flue. A properly seated multi-flue cap stops the cross-draft at the top.
- Crown spalling from repeated freeze-thaw cycling. Spokane’s shoulder seasons swing above and below freezing dozens of times. Water soaks into the crown, freezes, and pops the surface, opening cracks that funnel water straight down to the flue liner. Crown coating seals those cracks before they grow.
- Ponderosa pine creosote climbing past a damaged crown. Locally harvested Ponderosa pine has a higher resin content than seasoned hardwood, and it produces third-degree glazed creosote that’s sticky, hard, and climbs the flue above the crown line. Once it glazes, standard brushing won’t remove it, and a damaged crown speeds the whole process by letting moisture in.
- Rusted caps from decades of snow load. Steel caps on 100-year-old chimneys rust through, warp, and stop protecting the flue. We replace them with stainless steel caps from Olympia Chimney or Famco that are sized correctly and installed with a proper seal.
Pricing for Chimney Cap & Crown in Spokane, WA
A cap replacement in Spokane typically runs $240 to $480, depending on the flue size and whether it’s a single-flue or multi-flue application. Crown coating runs $350 to $700, and a full crown rebuild with proper overhang lands between $900 and $1,800 on a single-wythe brick chimney. Multi-flue caps on shared stacks run $550 to $1,200, including the mounting hardware and seal. These are written prices, not estimates you have to guess at. We bring the quote to your door, in writing, before any work starts, and the price doesn’t change mid-job. Call (980) 580-8641 for a free, line-item quote specific to your chimney.
We Also Serve Cities Near Spokane
Our crews work throughout the Spokane metro and the surrounding Inland Northwest. We regularly handle Spokane cap and crown jobs in Issaquah, Sammamish, Maple Valley, and Redmond, with the same written-price standard we apply everywhere. If you’re just outside the city and need a crown repair or a cap installed, call us and we’ll schedule it.
Serving Spokane, WA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Spokane area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs - Chimney Cap & Crown in Spokane
The Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency enforces burn bans when temperature inversions trap cold air and wood smoke in the river-valley bowl, and once a ban hits, you can’t legally burn unless your stove is your sole heat source. That creates a hard fall deadline. Fix your cap and crown in August or September. By October, every sweep in Spokane is booked, and a cracked crown in inversion season means no fires at all. Call (980) 580-8641 now and we’ll get it done before the bans settle in.
Yes, and it happens more than you’d think. South Hill’s attached bungalows often share a chimney stack, and a cracked crown opens a path for a neighbor’s exhaust to push through into your flue when the wind shifts. We’ve seen it on a 1920s Craftsman on South Hill recently, and a Copperfield multi-flue cap over the original terra cotta tiles stopped the cross-draft completely. The homeowner could finally burn without the neighbor’s fires pouring into their firebox.
Two reasons: snow and freeze-thaw cycling. Spokane averages over 45 inches of snow a year and sits in a continental climate that swings above and below freezing repeatedly through the shoulder seasons. Seattle and Portland stay comparatively mild and wet, but Spokane’s cold snaps cycle water into the crown’s pores, where it freezes and pops the surface. Single-wythe brick chimneys on Spokane’s older homes take that abuse every year, and the result is faster crown spalling and more frequent cap replacement.
Yes. Ponderosa pine, the dominant timber in the Inland Northwest, has a higher resin content than seasoned hardwood, and it produces a sticky, third-degree glazed creosote that climbs past the crown line and hardens into a tar glaze. A damaged crown makes this worse by letting moisture into the flue, which the creosote binds to. We recommend a stainless steel cap with proper screening and a sealed crown on any Spokane chimney burning local pine, and we’ll show you photos of your flue so you can see the buildup yourself.
If you share a chimney stack with an attached neighbor, a multi-flue cap is the single best fix for cross-draft and smoke intrusion. It covers the entire chimney top, sealing all flues under one unit, and it stops wind from pushing a neighbor’s exhaust across the crown into your flue. Foursquares in Browne’s Addition and South Hill were built before modern venting codes, and shared stacks are common. The Copperfield multi-flue caps we install are sized to the original terra cotta tiles, and the whole job is quoted in writing before we start.
Written by Corrine Halstead, Owner at Emberly Chimney Cleaners Every chimney we inspect in Spokane gets a written price, a photo record, and our 365-Day Done Right Promise before any work begins.