How Premier Chimney Cleaning Greater Spokane Was Born in Spokane
It was a Tuesday in November 2013, and we were standing in a living room on North Monroe Street watching a Spokane homeowner cry. Not quiet tears—angry tears. She’d paid another company $1,400 to “rebuild” her firebox, and three weeks later, smoke was backing up into her grandson’s bedroom. The “rebuild” was a patch job with regular mortar where refractory cement belonged, and the liner they’d “inspected” was never touched. She’d been sold fear—your house could burn down tonight—and then delivered garbage.
We were working for someone else then, sent to clean up the mess. That night, driving home past the Spokane River with creosote still under our fingernails, we made a promise: this city deserves better. No scare tactics. No phantom repairs. No charging $800 for a $200 sweep because the customer didn’t know what a flue looked like. Premier Chimney Cleaning Greater Spokane started the next spring with a used brush set, a borrowed truck, and a handwritten note taped to our dashboard: “Fix it right. Price it fair. Sleep soundly.” Eleven years later, that note is still in our glovebox, faded but legible.
Anthony Perez’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Anthony didn’t stumble into chimney work—he was dragged into it, literally, by his uncle Roberto at age nineteen. Summer of 2008, a 110-degree day in the San Fernando Valley, and Roberto needed someone small enough to fit inside a historic home’s cramped California-style chimney. “You’ll either love this or hate it,” Roberto said, handing Anthony a headlamp. “No middle ground.”
The smell hit first: old wood smoke, mineral dust, something metallic and ancient. Then the heat, radiating off brick that had absorbed decades of California sun. But what Anthony remembers most is the light—how his headlamp caught the glint of glazed creosote, thick and shiny as obsidian, and how Roberto explained that this shiny stuff was what killed people. Not dramatic fires. Slow, quiet, preventable ones. “Every chimney has a story,” Roberto said. “Your job is to read it.”
Anthony was supposed to be an architecture student. He’d drawn floor plans as a kid, built models from cereal boxes, dreamed of designing homes. But that summer, he kept showing up at Roberto’s jobs. He learned to feel for spalling brick with his fingertips, to hear the difference between a cracked flue tile and a sound one by tapping with a wrench. He learned that the best tool wasn’t the brush—it was patience, the willingness to sit on a roof in drizzle until you understood exactly why smoke was pooling in a particular corner of a particular house.
By 2012, Anthony had followed his sister to Spokane for a “fresh start” that was supposed to be temporary. The Inland Northwest got him. The way winter light hits the South Hill at 3 p.m. The smell of ponderosa pine smoke on cold mornings. The honesty of people who’d rather fix something right than replace it twice. He started picking up side jobs, word spreading through neighborhood Facebook groups and hardware store bulletin boards. Each job taught him something different about Spokane homes—the way pre-war bungalows in Emerson-Garfield settle, how ’70s ranches in Hays Park have weird offset flues, why newer construction in Five Mile Prairie struggles with draft despite perfect-looking chimneys.
If Anthony weren’t doing this, he’d probably be restoring old houses somewhere, working with his hands until dark. But this is restoration, just invisible. You don’t see a clean flue. You don’t see a properly sealed crown. You just see your family gathered around a fire that draws clean and burns true. That’s what gets him up at 5:30 a.m., even in February when the truck won’t start and the roof is slick with ice. The work matters because people’s actual safety depends on it, and because Spokane trusted him when he was a kid with a brush and no reviews. That debt doesn’t get repaid; it gets paid forward, one chimney at a time.
Meet Anthony Perez — The Person Behind Every Job
Anthony Perez is Owner & Lead Technician at Premier Chimney Cleaning Greater Spokane. He’s the person who answers your call, climbs your roof, and writes your invoice. No dispatchers. No rotating crews of strangers.
Anthony holds CSIA (Chimney Safety Institute of America) certification and has completed specialized training in HeatShield flue resurfacing systems and solid-fuel appliance installation. His eleven-plus years aren’t desk years—they’re years of hands-on work in Spokane’s actual homes, from historic mansions on the South Hill to new construction in Liberty Lake. He knows how to navigate a steep composite roof in January ice, how to spot a deteriorating crown from the street, and how to explain a repair to a homeowner without condescension or jargon.
What separates Anthony from franchise technicians is simple: he’s not building a career ladder, he’s building a life here. He’s the dad coaching Little League at Franklin Park, the guy who remembers your dog’s name from last year’s appointment, the one who’ll text you a photo of your chimney cap from his own phone so you can see what he’s seeing. His non-negotiable is showing up when he says he will—because in a city this size, your reputation is your only real asset, and Anthony intends to keep his.
His personal commitment to you: “I treat your home like my sister’s home. If I wouldn’t charge her for it, I won’t charge you for it. If I wouldn’t sleep soundly with my niece in the room below that chimney, I won’t sign off on the job. Period.”
Our Promise to Spokane Homeowners
Honest pricing, always itemized. After that November 2013 job, we built our pricing structure backwards—starting from what felt fair, not from what the market would bear. Every quote breaks down labor, materials, and time. If we quote $340 and finish in forty minutes because the job was simpler than expected, you pay $340. If we quote $340 and hit unexpected damage, we stop, show you, and re-quote before continuing. No “while we’re here” upsells. No $99 “inspections” that magically find $2,000 in “urgent” repairs.
Quality parts that last. We source stainless steel liners through Olympia Chimney and specify Gelco caps for most Spokane installations because we’ve watched cheaper galvanized versions rust through in three Spokane winters. We use HeatShield refractory mortar for firebox repairs because we’ve torn out too many “budget” repairs that crumbled in eighteen months. The part we can’t see from the ground matters as much as the part we can.
We stand behind every job. In 2019, a liner we installed in Country Homes developed a separation at the collar joint—manufacturer defect, not installation error. We replaced it on our own dime, three years later, because the homeowner had trusted us and that trust has a shelf life of forever. That’s our policy: if we touched it, we own it, even when we could legally walk away.
Our Credentials
State-licensed — We maintain active Washington state contractor licensing for chimney and fireplace work, meeting all bonding and insurance requirements for residential service.
Insured & bonded — Full general liability and workers compensation coverage protects your property and our team on every job.
11+ years in business — Serving Spokane homeowners since 2014, with thousands of completed jobs across the Inland Northwest.
892 verified reviews averaging 4.7/5 stars — Real feedback from real Spokane-area customers, documented across Google, Yelp, and industry platforms.
Why this matters when you hire someone to work in your home: Chimney work happens on your roof, in your living space, around your family. State licensing means we’ve passed background checks and competency requirements. Insurance means if a ladder slips or a tool drops, you’re not paying for it. Those 892 reviews? They’re 892 families who let us into their homes and would do it again. In a trade where you can’t see 90% of what we do, trust is the only currency that counts—and we’ve spent eleven years earning it.
Rooted in Spokane
We’re not a national franchise with a Spokane zip code. We’re from here. Anthony lives in the North Indian Trail area, where he can see the Spokane River gorge from his porch. Our service routes take us through Cheney’s college-town streets, past the orchards in Otis Orchards-East Farms, along the busy commercial strips of Spokane Valley, and up to the windy ridges of Five Mile Prairie. We’ve swept chimneys before Spokane Indians games at Avista Stadium, after Hoopfest weekends when everyone’s been grilling, during Ice Storm power outages when wood stoves became lifelines. We’ve donated services to Spokane Valley Fire Department’s safety education programs and sponsored Little League teams in Dishman and Veradale. This isn’t community involvement as marketing—it’s just being present in the place that built us. When you call (833) 749-2788, you’re calling a neighbor who happens to own really good brushes.
Written by Anthony Perez, Owner at Premier Chimney Cleaning Greater Spokane, serving Spokane since 2014.