How Sequoia Chimney Sweep Vancouver Was Born in Vancouver
It was a Tuesday in February 2010, and Larry Peterson was standing in a living room on Officers Row watching a retired Navy captain get handed a bill for $4,200 for a “complete chimney rebuild” that Larry knew, from twenty minutes of looking, was unnecessary. The captain’s wife had called three companies. The first two no-showed. The third showed up in a rusted van, spent eleven minutes on the roof, then produced a clipboard with pre-printed scare tactics about “imminent carbon monoxide poisoning.” The flue had some cracked mortar, sure. It needed a thorough cleaning and some pointed-up joints. Not a rebuild. Not four thousand dollars.
Larry was working for another outfit then, sent to give a second opinion the captain had requested through a friend of a friend. He fixed it that afternoon for $340. The captain pressed an extra fifty into Larry’s hand and said, “You need to work for yourself. People here deserve someone who won’t rob them.”
That night, Larry sat in his truck outside Beaches Restaurant on the Columbia River, watching the Portland lights flicker through the fog, and wrote three promises on the back of a receipt: show up when we say we will, tell the truth even when it’s bad for business, and never sell a repair someone doesn’t need. Sequoia Chimney Sweep Vancouver started six weeks later with a borrowed ladder and a used brush set. We’ve kept every one of those promises since.
Larry Peterson’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Larry didn’t stumble into chimney work. He was pulled into it by his grandfather, a stone mason in Kalama who built fireplaces the way other men told stories—slowly, carefully, with his whole body involved. Summer evenings, Larry would watch those hands, permanently dusted with lime and blackened at the knuckles, trace mortar joints like they were braille. “The flue is the lungs,” his grandfather would say, tapping the clay liner. “You don’t let someone’s lungs stay dirty.”
The smell got him first. Not the creosote—that sharp, tarry bite—but the stone itself after rain, the wet ash smell of a fire properly banked, the mineral tang of old brick. Even now, fourteen years later, Larry says he can walk into a Hazel Dell rancher or a Felida craftsman and know by scent whether the previous owner burned seasoned alder or green Douglas fir, whether the damper’s been left open through a winter of disuse.
The feeling got him next. There’s a particular resistance when a brush catches on third-stage creosote glaze, a vibration up the fiberglass rod that tells you this chimney has been neglected too long. Larry describes it as “the moment you know you’re preventing something.” He’s pulled dead birds from flues in Minnehaha basements, found squirrel nests packed tight as insulation in Lake Shore chimneys, discovered cracked flue liners in Salmon Creek homes where families had been breathing combustion byproducts for years without knowing. Each time, there’s the same physical sensation: shoulders dropping, breath releasing, the quiet certainty that this exact house is safer because he showed up.
If Larry weren’t doing this, he’d probably be fishing the Lewis River for steelhead or building stone walls on his brother’s property outside Woodland. He tried the office life once, three months in 2008 selling something forgettable over the phone. Came home with headaches and a jaw he couldn’t unclench. The morning he quit, he drove to Frenchman’s Bar Park and watched the Columbia run brown with spring melt, and knew: his work needs to be physical, visible, and directly useful to someone he might run into at Chuck’s Produce. Chimney work is all three.
What gets him out of bed isn’t the schedule. It’s the text messages. The ones that come at 9:47 PM on a Sunday in October: “Larry, you cleaned our chimney on MacArthur Boulevard last year. We just bought my mom’s house in Barberton and something’s not right with her fireplace. Can you look this week?” He answers every one himself.
Meet Larry Peterson — The Person Behind Every Job
Larry Peterson is the Owner & Lead Technician at Sequoia Chimney Sweep Vancouver. He’s been climbing roofs and crawling fireboxes across Clark County for 14 years, starting with that borrowed ladder and building, through word-of-mouth and repeat customers, into the company we are today.
Larry holds CSIA certification (Chimney Safety Institute of America) and has completed specialized training in DuraFlex stainless steel relining systems and Copperfield chimney repair products. Unlike franchise technicians who rotate through territories every six months, Larry personally handles the majority of our inspections and all complex repairs. He’s the one on your roof, the one who explains what he found, the one who answers if you call back with questions.
Here’s the personal detail that matters: Larry keeps a notebook. Physical, spiral-bound, filled with sketches of unusual flue configurations he’s encountered—an 1890s Kenton farmhouse with a modified Rumford, a Five Corners split-level with a factory-built chimney that three other companies misidentified. He studies these the way some people study maps. It’s not required. It’s who he is.
Our commitment to you is simple and personal: if Larry wouldn’t do the work in his own mother’s house on Officers Row, he won’t do it in yours.
Our Promise to Vancouver Homeowners
Honest pricing means no surprises. We provide written estimates before any work begins, and we’ve never added a “trip charge” after the fact. In 2019, a Walnut Grove customer called after another company quoted $1,800 for a “damper replacement.” Larry found a broken linkage pin. The repair cost $127. She left our first review. We still service her home annually.
Quality parts mean we know what we’re installing. We specify Olympia Chimney and Famco products by name in our proposals, not “industry standard” generics. When we relined a chimney in Orchards last winter, the homeowner asked why our quote was higher than a competitor’s. Larry showed her the DuraFlex spec sheet versus the unbranded alternative. She chose us. The competitor’s “stainless” liner failed inspection eighteen months later.
Standing behind every job means we return. A North Portland customer (we cross the river for established clients) had water infiltration six months after a crown repair. Larry was there the next morning, found a hairline separation the sealant hadn’t bonded to, and rebuilt it at no charge. “Mistakes happen,” he told her. “Hiding them is the only real failure.”
Our Credentials
State-licensed chimney contractor — Washington requirements ensure technicians understand fire codes, clearances, and venting standards specific to our wet climate.
Insured & bonded — protects your property and our team while we’re on ladders, on roofs, and inside your home.
14+ years serving Vancouver and surrounding communities — long enough to have cleaned the same chimneys multiple times, tracked how local burning habits affect creosote buildup, and built relationships with homeowners who’ve referred their neighbors and children.
664 verified reviews averaging 4.8 out of 5 stars — not selected testimonials, not “over 500 happy customers” vagueness. These are documented, reviewable experiences from real Vancouver-area homeowners.
These credentials matter because chimney work happens in your living space and on your roof. State licensing means Larry has demonstrated knowledge of Washington’s specific codes. Insurance means if a ladder slips on your Felida deck’s wet composite in December, you’re not navigating claims alone. Fourteen years and 664 reviews mean you can verify, right now, how we’ve treated people like you. The numbers aren’t decoration. They’re proof you can check.
Rooted in Vancouver
We’ve cleaned chimneys in every neighborhood listed on our service page, but we live here too. Larry’s kids went through Hazel Dell schools. You’ll see our truck at the Vancouver Farmers Market downtown on Saturday mornings when we’re between calls. We’ve sponsored youth baseball teams in Salmon Creek and donated sweepings—processed into garden fertilizer—to community gardens in Kenton. When the 2021 ice storm hit, Larry spent three days checking chimneys for Minnehaha neighbors who’d been running fireplaces hard with no recent inspection, charging nothing for the safety checks. This isn’t marketing. It’s just what you do when your customers are also the people you see at New Seasons or waiting for the MAX yellow line. Vancouver isn’t our territory. It’s our home.
Written by Larry Peterson, Owner at Sequoia Chimney Sweep Vancouver, serving Vancouver since 2010. Call us at (888) 916-8797 for honest answers about your chimney—estimates are always free.