Renton, King County
Our floor price for relining a Renton chimney is $1,900. That buys stainless steel over the flue's entire height. Three measurements set the real number: how tall the stack is, what diameter the stove, insert or furnace requires, and how many bends the old flue takes on the way up. We do not price it by phone. The flue is filmed first, and the quote is written from the footage.
Typical investment
From $1,900
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Book your $99 inspection
$99 plus tax, deducted when you approve the repair
Not sure where to start
Pick what you're seeing at your Renton home — we'll point you to the right fix.
What we do
The same crew, the same written quote — for Renton homes.
Level 1 review of the accessible parts, stepped up to a Level 2 camera pass when those parts cannot settle the question
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The flue brushed along its full height with heads chosen for its shape and material
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An assessment in photos that tells weathering apart from structural failure
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Each flue measured, or the whole crown when one cap will cover several flues
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Burner, pilot assembly and igniter cleaned and tested
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Photos of the crown and of all four faces before work begins
Learn moreRanges shown for orientation — the exact figure is written up on-site, after the inspection.
Of the four cities we cover, Renton has the oldest housing, and that is where relining questions come from. A house from the war years on the Highlands, or any home that predates the appliance now connected to its chimney, is the typical case. A clay-tile flue laid for an open fire is often far wider than a modern insert's outlet, and exhaust that cools in an oversized flue leaves more tar behind. A liner corrects the size along with the surface.
By the American Community Survey's count, Renton has 3,074 housing units from the 1950s and 5,320 from the 1960s, with another 5,154 from the 1970s. Add the 1,762 units of the 1940s and more than a third of the city's homes come from those four decades.
Renton was an industrial town in those years. HistoryLink records Boeing opening its plant near the Lake Washington shore in 1941 and assembling the 737 there from 1967, and housing followed the jobs. The fireplaces in those houses were designed around open wood fires. Many now hold an insert, and an insert wants a flue of its own diameter from collar to cap, which is exactly what a liner provides.
Every chimney relining we do in Renton includes:
Smoke coming back into the room, or a smell that won't go? Book the inspection first.
Book nowTwo findings lead to most of our Renton relining quotes. One is tile damage on camera: gaps at the joints, cracks, or sections that have shifted out of line. The other is an insert or stove that was slid into a fireplace years ago with only a short stub of pipe above it. Either way the liner becomes the flue, and the old masonry around it turns into a protective shell.
The camera records height, offsets and the narrowest point the liner must pass.
Diameter comes from the manufacturer's instructions for the unit being vented, not from the size of the old flue.
The liner is lowered in one piece, insulated where called for, and fixed to a plate at the top.
The appliance is joined to the liner and a draft test is run before the photos go into your file.
Looking 50 years ahead, the state Department of Natural Resources puts at 85 percent the likelihood that a deep earthquake measuring 6.5 at minimum strikes the Puget Sound region. Renton has already been through two of note: its hazard plan mentions the 1965 quake that badly damaged the Boeing plant and the 2001 Nisqually quake that cracked masonry and dropped chimneys.
Clay flue tiles are stacked sections with mortar between them, and shaking opens those joints. A continuous steel liner has no joints to open. It does not hold a weak stack upright, though, so when the camera or the roof check shows the masonry itself has moved, we quote that repair first and the liner second.
What this work is quoted at for Renton homes — the exact figure comes from the $99 on-site inspection, credited toward the work.
| Service | Price in Renton | What that covers |
|---|---|---|
| Chimney Relining | From $1,900 | Full-length stainless liner, sized to the appliance |
| Chimney Sweep | $189–$459 | Full flue swept, Level 1 inspection included |
| Chimney Inspection | $99 plus tax | Level 1 visual; Level 2 adds a full camera scan |
| Chimney Repair | From $375 | Masonry repair — brick and mortar, scoped after diagnosis |
| Chimney Cap Installation | $265–$850 | Stainless cap fitted; multi-flue and custom at the top |
Ranges are what these jobs are quoted at in Renton. The exact figure is set on site after a $99 inspection (credited toward the job if you go ahead), and you approve it before any work starts.
Inside city limits, a mechanical permit of the simple, over-the-counter kind is something Renton lets you request online, via the portal it calls Civic Access Self-Service. The codes behind them are the 2021 Washington State editions, effective since March 15, 2024.
Just outside the line the rules change hands. Fairwood and East Renton Highlands are unincorporated. There the county issues the residential mechanical permit that covers putting in, swapping or moving a wood stove or a fireplace, and it takes applications through MyBuildingPermit.com. We ask for the address before quoting a liner tied to a new appliance, because it decides which office reads the application.
Renton is a city of 24 square miles at the south end of Lake Washington, incorporated in 1901, on Lake Washington, with homes with a median build year of 1988, more than a third of them built from the 1940s through the 1970s. We work every part of it — the Highlands, Kennydale, Benson Hill, Talbot Hill, Earlington, North Renton included.
RentonKing County, WA · 47.483, -122.217
Before and after
Illustrations of what each repair changes on a typical chimney — not photos of a specific job.
Before
After
Before
After
Before
After
Four steps, each one on paper — so you always know what happens next.
Choose a genuine opening on the crew's calendar. Confirmation is immediate.
Liner, crown, cap, flashing and masonry examined in order — each finding photographed.
One document, plain numbers, covering only the work your chimney genuinely needs.
The repair is completed, then handed over with before-and-after photos of every item.
From $1,900. That base figure is a straight, single-story flue serving one appliance. Extra height, offsets, insulation and a difficult roof all add to it, and the written quote spells out which apply.
City rules call for a permit ahead of altering, repairing or replacing any gas or mechanical system the construction codes regulate, with some listed exemptions. Whether a given liner job falls under that depends on the appliance involved, so we tell you what the quote covers and the city's permit desk confirms the category.
It is the inspection visit, $99 plus tax. Go ahead with the relining and that $99 disappears from the invoice.
A $99 on-site inspection, a written quote before any work, and photos of every item we touch.
