Tacoma, Pierce County
Tacoma dryer vents: $105 to $260 to clean. Pay the lower figure when the duct goes a few feet straight out a side wall. A long duct snaking through a crawl space or attic, a vent that ends on the roof, or a line packed with a nest sits higher. Either way the goal is the same: lint out, air moving, and a dryer that finishes a load in one cycle again.
Typical investment
$105–$260
Book an inspection
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 Tacoma home — we'll point you to the right fix.
What we do
The same crew, the same written quote — for Tacoma homes.
Level 1 or Level 2 as needed; Level 2 includes a camera run through the entire flue
Learn more
Top-to-bottom brushing of flue and firebox under drop cloths, with a HEPA vacuum pulling the dust
Learn more
Loose or damaged brick, open joints and firebox panels repaired
Learn more
A full-length stainless-steel or cast liner, firebox to chimney top
Learn more
A stainless cap sized to your actual flue dimensions
Learn more
Burner, pilot assembly and valve cleaned and adjusted
Learn moreRanges shown for orientation — the exact figure is written up on-site, after the inspection.
Laundry in many older Tacoma houses came decades after construction, often in a basement or a converted back porch, with a vent routed wherever it would fit. We regularly find long runs through crawl spaces, several elbows and sections of plastic or foil duct that were never meant to stay.
Roughly 26.9 percent of Tacoma's homes were built in 1939 or earlier, per census estimates, compared with about 10.1 percent across Pierce County. Neighborhoods like Proctor grew along the first streetcar line from downtown to Point Defiance Park.
Houses from that period were designed around fireplaces and chimneys, not dryers. When laundry arrived later, the vent often went through the old foundation or up alongside a chimney, sometimes into an unused flue. A dryer should never share a chimney flue, and we check for that on older houses.
Every dryer vent cleaning we do in Tacoma includes:
Smoke coming back into the room, or a smell that won't go? Book the inspection first.
Book nowTacoma-specific trouble spots: damp lint caked in duct runs through unheated crawl spaces, flapper hoods stuck open or closed by grime, screened outlets that trap lint, birds nesting in wall and roof terminations in spring, and crushed transition hoses pushed behind the dryer.
Pierce County knows serious shaking. The 2001 Nisqually earthquake, magnitude 6.8, came from roughly 52 kilometers beneath Anderson Island, and when FEMA went house to house afterward, chimneys were the damage it kept finding, in some ten thousand of the homes it saw.
Dryer ducts suffer less than chimneys, but joints hanging under a floor can separate when the house shifts, sending hot, lint-laden air into the crawl space instead of outside. We check every reachable joint along the run.
The 2021 Washington State Residential Code, in force since March 15, 2024, allows at most 35 feet of 4-inch smooth metal duct, and each bend eats into that: five feet off for a right-angle elbow, two and a half for a 45. The flexible transition behind the dryer may not exceed 8 feet or be hidden in a wall.
The outlet must be outdoors, at least 3 feet from building openings, with a backdraft damper and no screen. Screened hoods and overlong runs are the two items worth checking first in Tacoma's older houses.
We follow the duct from the dryer to where it leaves the house and note its length, turns and material.
A rotary brush works through from inside and outside, and the lint is pulled out rather than pushed into the wall.
A crushed or plastic transition hose is replaced with a proper one, and the hood flap is freed so it closes.
Airflow at the outlet is compared with the reading taken before, and anything outside code is written up.
What this work is quoted at for Tacoma homes — the exact figure comes from the $99 on-site inspection, credited toward the work.
| Service | Price in Tacoma | What that covers |
|---|---|---|
| Dryer Vent Cleaning | $105–$260 | Full run cleaned; roof or upper-floor terminations at the top |
| Chimney Sweep | $189–$449 | Full flue swept, Level 1 inspection included |
| Chimney Inspection | $99 plus tax | Level 1 visual; Level 2 adds a full camera scan |
| Chimney Relining | From $1,900 | Full-length stainless liner, sized to the appliance |
| Chimney Repair | From $375 | Masonry repair — brick and mortar, scoped after diagnosis |
Ranges are what these jobs are quoted at in Tacoma. 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.
Dryer vents are not affected by burn bans, but many of the houses we visit also have a fireplace or stove. During a Stage 1 ban, open wood fireplaces plus stoves and inserts without certification have to sit idle; a Stage 2 ban extends that to certified wood and pellet appliances too.
Households with no other adequate heat can get a pre-approved exemption; nobody else can. Current status is on the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency website and at 800-595-4341.
Nearly forty inches of annual precipitation (39.76, in Tacoma's WRCC record) keep the ground under a house wet most of the year, and the same record logs around 31.8 frosty nights, the bulk of them in midwinter.
A dryer duct running through a cold, damp crawl space cools the warm, moist air from the dryer, and water condenses inside the pipe. Lint sticks to the wet walls and builds up into clumps much faster than in a short, warm run.
Tacoma is the port city the Northern Pacific Railroad chose in 1873 as the western terminus of its transcontinental line, on Commencement Bay, with the territory's oldest housing — about 27% of homes built in 1939 or earlier, in Queen Anne, Craftsman and Foursquare styles. We work every part of it — North Slope, Stadium-Seminary, Proctor, College Park, Buckley's Addition included.
TacomaPierce County, WA · 47.253, -122.444
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.
Between $105 and $260. Expect the upper half for a roof outlet, a long crawl-space line, or a vent a bird has moved into.
Once a year suits most households; large families or long runs may need it more. Clean the lint screen every load in between.
In U.S. Fire Administration numbers, lint left in place leads the causes of dryer fires (34 percent), and January is when they happen most.
A $99 on-site inspection, a written quote before any work, and photos of every item we touch.
