Level 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.
Before
After
Before
After
Before
AfterMeet the Baltimore Team Behind Hearthstone Chimney Co.
Our Baltimore crew has been climbing roofs in Canton, Federal Hill, and Roland Park for decades. What keeps us together isn’t a handbook. It’s the K.E.Y.S. code: Krafted right, Every time, Your home first, Standing behind it. Russell Haines built this team one hire at a time, and every person here can explain a flue lining problem in plain English or spot a cracked crown from the sidewalk. We’re the ones who answer when you call.
Our People
Russell Haines, Owner
I started Hearthstone Chimney Co. in 1984, back when Baltimore’s rowhouse chimneys were still exhausting coal residue and nobody owned a chimney camera. Forty-two years later, I’m still on roofs when the job calls for it, though these days I spend more time training our crew and answering the phone myself when the service coordinator’s tied up. I hold a CSIA Certified Chimney Sweep credential and a stubborn belief that every homeowner deserves photos they can see and a verdict they can understand. My dry sense of humor surfaces at odd moments, usually when I’m describing a creosote buildup that looks like something from a horror film. I live in the area with my family, and I plan to be here for another thirty years. That changes how you treat people.
Marcus T., Lead Technician
Marcus has been with us for eleven years, and he’s the technician other crews request when a job goes sideways. He’s CSIA-certified and specializes in Level-2 camera inspections, the kind that find the crack hiding behind a perfectly normal-looking flue tile. Marcus grew up in West Baltimore and knows the local housing stock cold: the narrow flues in Fells Point Federal-style homes, the oversized fireplaces in Guilford colonials that were never properly lined. He’ll talk your ear off about vintage HeatShield applications if you let him, but he’ll also stop everything to show you exactly where water’s getting in. Off the clock, he restores old motorcycles in a garage that has, ironically, no working fireplace.
Darnell K., Senior Installer
Darnell handles our liner installations, crown rebuilds, and anything that requires him to haul DuraFlex or Copperfield materials up a ladder. He’s been in the trade for sixteen years, fourteen of them with Hearthstone, and he’s certified in both solid-pack and flexible stainless steel liner systems. Darnell’s particular skill is fitting modern liner systems into Baltimore’s older masonry chimneys without damaging historic brickwork, a problem he solved so often in Mount Vernon that other contractors started asking our advice. He’s background-checked and uniformed like the rest of the crew, but homeowners usually remember his patience: he’ll walk you through why a Gelco cap costs what it costs, or why your chimney needs Olympia Chimney components instead of whatever the previous installer used. He coaches youth basketball in Park Heights on weekends.
Sandra L., Service Coordinator
Sandra’s the live voice you get when you call (410) 849-6273 at 10 PM on a Saturday or 7 AM on a Tuesday. She’s been with us for eight years, and she knows our Baltimore schedule, our technician specialties, and the exact permit requirements for chimney work in Baltimore County versus the city limits. Sandra coordinates every appointment, confirms every estimate, and follows up after every job to make sure the 90-Day Done Right Promise isn’t just words on paper. She grew up in Towson and still lives there, which means she understands why a Canton homeowner panics about a leaking flue differently than someone in Pikesville. She has a gift for calming people down and a low tolerance for vague answers from anyone, including us.
Jesse R., Apprentice Technician
Jesse joined us two years ago after leaving a general construction job where he never quite found his specialty. He’s completing his CSIA certification while working alongside Marcus and Darnell, and he’s already taken the lead on basic sweeps and cap installations across Hampden and Charles Village. Jesse’s the crew member who asks the questions other people stopped asking years ago, which sometimes slows a job down and sometimes catches a problem everyone else missed. He’s learning to read a chimney camera feed with the same fluency Marcus has, and he’s already better at explaining creosote stages to nervous first-time homeowners than some sweeps with a decade on him. He lives in Highlandtown with two cats who have never shown the slightest interest in his fireplace expertise.
One Standard, Every Job
Every person on this page answers to the same standard, whether they’re on their first chimney or their ten-thousandth. The 90-Day Done Right Promise applies to Jesse’s work exactly as it applies to mine. No arguing, no paperwork shuffle. If it’s not right, we come back. Our technicians arrive in uniform with background checks complete, most jobs finished in a single visit, and pricing locked before we start. We use DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, Famco, and Copperfield because builder-grade materials fail faster in Baltimore’s freeze-thaw cycles, and we don’t install what we wouldn’t live with ourselves. The K.E.Y.S. code isn’t a poster on the wall. It’s how we decide who’s worth hiring, what materials are worth using, and whether a job’s worth signing off on. After forty-two years, we’ve learned that the only way to stay in business for another thirty is to mean what we say.
Written by Russell Haines, Owner at Hearthstone Chimney Co., serving Baltimore since 1984.