Sweep & inspection
Caps & crowns
Flue relining
Masonry repair
Gas fireplace serviceLevel 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.
Fast, Reliable Dryer Vent Cleaning Across Westwood
Dryer vent cleaning in Westwood typically runs $149 – $289 for a standard single-story home, and most jobs are done in about an hour. The catch in Westwood, CA is that many mill-era houses vent dryers into aging masonry chimneys that were never designed for appliance exhaust, which changes both the diagnosis and the fix. We work across ZIP 96137 and the surrounding high-country roads from Westwood down toward Clear Creek and up past Walker Lake, and we schedule by elevation and road conditions, not just by calendar. If your dryer takes two cycles to dry a load or you smell a musty, hot-lint odor near the laundry room, call Norm Castillo’s team at (833) 805-3229 for a straight answer and a free estimate.
Why Ashwood Chimney Sweep Is Westwood’s Preferred Dryer Vent Cleaning Company
Most dryer vent companies treat the duct as a standalone tube. In Westwood, that misses the real problem. Homes here sit at roughly 5,000 feet in the Sierra/Cascade transition zone, where old mill-town housing stock from the early 1900s mixes with mid-century cabins and manufactured homes, many of which share a single masonry stack for the wood stove and the dryer. We have pulled lint out of clay-tile flues on Pine Street, on Mooney Road, and in the scattered off-pavement parcels east of Highway 36, and the job is almost never just about the dryer. Our Dryer Vent Cleaning team runs a camera first so you see exactly what is in the run before anything gets quoted.
We are not a one-task crew. Ashwood Chimney Sweep handles chimney sweeping, chimney repair, and dryer vent cleaning as one call. That matters in a town where a blocked dryer vent and a creosote-loaded flue often share the same stack. We repair with the same materials professional contractors specify, DuraFlex liners, HeatShield in Westwood restoration product, and Famco ventilation components, because a fix that fails in a Westwood winter is worse than no fix at all. No hand-off to a separate crew, no phone-tag between an inspector and the person doing the work. One contractor sees it, diagnoses it, and fixes it.
Norm Castillo runs the crew personally, and he has seen enough Westwood vent jobs to know that honesty means showing footage on a tablet, not dangling a repair you cannot verify. That approach has earned us repeat calls all over Westwood and into the surrounding mountain communities. If you are in Westwood and want a company that understands the older stacks and shared flues here, you have found it.
Styles & brands we work with





Our Dryer Vent Cleaning Services in Westwood
Dryer Vent Cleaning
The core service Westwood homeowners call us for. We remove built-up lint from the full vent run, not just the first few feet behind the dryer, and we check the exterior termination for snow damage, ice crush, or critter nests. In Westwood’s high-country climate, an exterior hood that iced over in February often gets bent out of shape and never seals right again, we see it constantly on cabins east of town. Standard cleaning runs $149 – $289 depending on run length and access.

Level 2 Inspection
A Level 2 inspection matters here more than in valley towns, because so many Westwood dryer vents tie into chimney flues rather than dedicated duct runs. We camera the entire path from the dryer outlet to the exterior or stack termination and document every transition, offset, and connection with photos you can see. This is the inspection that catches a lint-choked transition or a spalled smoke chamber leaking exhaust into interior wall cavities. In Westwood, a Level 2 inspection runs $199 – $349 when added to a cleaning, or $249 – $399 as a standalone.

Chimney Camera Inspection
For homes where the dryer shares a stack with a wood stove or fireplace, which is common in the older mill-district houses and mid-century cabins around Westwood, a camera inspection of the shared flue is not optional. The camera shows glazed creosote from burning unseasoned pine or fir, cracked clay tiles, and deteriorated mortar joints. That information decides whether the problem is a simple lint clearing or a liner repair. Nothing gets recommended unless you can see it on the screen yourself.

Dryer Vent Repair & Rerouting
When the vent is crushed, disconnected, or routed improperly, which happens often after a heavy snow year in Westwood, we repair or reroute the run using Famco ventilation hardware rather than improvised parts. In some mill-era homes, the smartest fix is to disconnect the dryer from the shared masonry flue entirely and run a dedicated vent, our techs will recommend that honestly when the camera supports it, because a dryer does not belong in a stack built for wood exhaust.

What happens when you call
- 1
A real person answersNo phone trees — you reach a local pro.
- 2
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.
Trusted Brands We Service in Westwood
We install and service dryer vent systems built from Famco ventilation components, hardware manufactured specifically for appliance exhaust rather than generic ductwork from a big-box shelf. For chimney-connected issues in Westwood homes, we stock and are certified to install DuraFlex flexible liner systems, a professional-grade product that is not available through retail channels, and we use HeatShield restoration product to repair cracked or spalled flues without full demolition. When a Westwood customer needs a new liner or vent run, they get materials specified by the professional chimney trade, Copperfield and Olympia Chimney supply lines included, not whatever was cheapest at the hardware store. That distinction matters when your vent has to survive a real mountain winter.
See the difference
Before
After
Before
After
Before
AfterCommon Dryer Vent Cleaning Problems We See in Westwood Homes
- Dryer vents tied into aging chimney flues. Westwood’s early-20th-century mill houses and mid-century cabins often have dryers venting into masonry stacks built for wood stoves or fireplaces. The flue was never sized or lined for appliance exhaust, so lint collects at the transition and backdrafts into the house, which reads as a chimney draft problem rather than a dryer fault.
- Heavy glazed creosote in shared stacks. Homeowners here burn whatever local pine and fir is available, and much of it is seasoned too fast or burned green. That produces hard, glazed creosote that can ignite if dryer lint ignites nearby, a linked fire risk most generic dryer vent companies never mention.
- Snow-damaged exterior terminations. Winter snow load and ice crush exterior vent hoods on off-pavement cabins and homes along the higher roads around Westwood. A crushed or disconnected termination often goes unnoticed for months because the damage is on the roof or high on an exterior wall, out of sight until a camera inspection finds it.
- Slow dry times misdiagnosed as appliance failure. We hear it all the time in Westwood: the homeowner replaces heating elements and cleans the lint trap, but the dryer still takes three cycles. The camera usually shows the real culprit, a restricted or disconnected vent run behind the wall, not a mechanical fault.
Pricing for Dryer Vent Cleaning in Westwood, CA
A standard dryer vent cleaning in Westwood runs $149 – $289 for a single-story home with a direct vent run. Two-story homes, long runs over 25 feet, or vents that terminate on a roof run $229 – $349. Level 2 camera inspection adds $199 – $349 depending on whether it is bundled with a cleaning. If your dryer connects to a shared chimney flue, which is common in the mill district and older cabins here, expect the higher end of those ranges because the job requires inspecting the stack, not just pushing a brush through a duct. What affects price in Westwood specifically is access: off-pavement driveways, steep pitches, and late-season snow all change how we set up. Call (833) 805-3229 and Norm will give you a flat price before we book, no estimate games.
We Also Serve Cities Near Westwood
Our Dryer Vent Cleaning crews work throughout the surrounding high country. We serve Silver Lakes, San Fernando, Northridge, and Adelanto, along with the rural parcels and mountain roads in between. If you are outside the Westwood core but still need a camera-based inspection or a liner repair, call (833) 805-3229 and we will tell you honestly whether we can get to your driveway this season.
Serving Westwood, CA — Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Westwood 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 – Dryer Vent Cleaning in Westwood
Look at where your dryer sits in relation to the chimney. In Westwood’s mill-era houses and older cabins, the laundry room is frequently on an interior wall near the central masonry stack, which means the dryer likely vents into the chimney rather than through a dedicated exterior wall cap. If your dryer duct disappears into the wall running toward the chimney, or if you see a dryer vent hood mounted on the masonry itself, you have a shared or chimney-connected vent. The only way to confirm the full path is a camera inspection, which we perform on every Westwood dryer job by default. Call (833) 805-3229 and we will walk you through what to look for before we even schedule.
Cold, snowy Westwood winters affect dryer performance in two ways. Exterior vent hoods can ice over or get crushed by snow load, restricting airflow. And in homes where the dryer shares a chimney flue, cold air sinks down the stack and creates backdraft against the dryer’s exhaust, effectively fighting the blower. If your dryer only struggles during cold months, the vent termination or the shared stack is the likely culprit, not the machine. A camera inspection will show the restriction in minutes.
You can clean the visible few feet behind the dryer, but on a Westwood home with an older chimney, the dangerous part is what you cannot see: a lint-choked transition where the dryer run meets the masonry flue, or a spalled smoke chamber leaking exhaust inside a wall cavity. Those conditions are hidden and cannot be cleared with a homeowner-grade brush from a hardware store. Genuinely hazardous systems, clay-tile flues, shared stacks, gas exhaust, call a trained professional rather than risk it. We would rather tell you the job is straightforward and watch you handle it than have you miss something that burns your house down. That is not scare-selling; it is what the camera shows us week after week in Westwood.
A Level 2 inspection for a dryer vent in Westwood includes a full camera run from the dryer outlet to the exterior or stack termination, with photo documentation of every offset, transition, and connection point. When the dryer shares a chimney flue, which is common here, the inspection also covers the smoke chamber, the clay-tile liner if present, and the cap or crown. You receive a written report with photos you can see, and Norm will review it with you line by line, nothing recommended without footage backing it up.
Every 12 months for most Westwood homes, and every 6 to 9 months for older mill-town houses where the dryer shares a chimney flue or vents through a long, multi-offset run. The reason for the shorter interval is lint accumulation at the transition into the masonry stack, which happens faster in shared-flue setups than in dedicated duct runs. If you burn wood for heat in the same stack, the creosote and lint interact, so do not push the interval. Call (833) 805-3229 for a free estimate and we will tell you what your specific home actually needs.
Call (833) 805-3229 today for a free estimate on dryer vent cleaning anywhere in Westwood, CA. Norm Castillo’s team will show you the camera footage, give you a flat price before we book, and treat your dryer vent as the fire-safety system it is.
Written by Norm Castillo, Owner at Ashwood Chimney Sweep, serving Westwood since 2018.