How Hearthstone Chimney Co. Was Born in Queens
We still remember the call that made us decide to bring Hearthstone to Queens. It was late autumn, 2014. A woman in Forest Hills had hired a sweep to look at her chimney before the first fire of the season. They told her she needed a full liner replacement, quoted her a price that made her voice shake on the phone, and left her with a carbon-copy form and no photographs. She called us for a second opinion because someone at her church had used Hearthstone in another city.
We sent a certified sweep with a camera. The liner had some creosote buildup, nothing more. A standard sweep and inspection. She’d have paid thousands for work she didn’t need. That afternoon, driving back past the Van Wyck, we made the decision. Queens deserved a branch of this company, run by people who’d treat the work like it mattered. Not fast. Not cheap. Right.
Russell Haines’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Russell didn’t stumble into chimney work. He was drawn to it slowly, the way you realize a house needs a foundation you can’t see. He’d spent years in trades that touched everything around the hearth, carpentry and general repair, and kept finding himself called back to the same problem: the fireplace that didn’t draw right, the smoke stain on the mantel, the homeowner who’d given up on using something that was supposed to be the heart of their home.
The turning point came on a job in Jamaica, early in 2012. A family had stopped using their living room entirely because every fire sent smoke rolling back into the house. Two companies had told them the chimney was “probably fine” and suggested they open a window. Russell spent three hours on that roof, dropping a camera, mapping the flue, finding a partial collapse six feet down that no one had bothered to look for. When he showed them the image on the screen, the husband just sat down on the brick hearth and stared at it. They’d been cold for two winters.
That feeling, of handing someone back a room they’d abandoned, became the reason Russell got out of bed in the mornings. The smell of creosote still reminds him of that first successful fix, the particular acrid sweetness of it in cold air. The weight of a brush on a rod, the sound of mortar crumbling just enough to tell you it’s failed, the way Queens light hits brick differently in November than in March, he’s learned all of it by doing, year after year, since well before this branch opened.
If he weren’t doing this, he’d probably be restoring old houses somewhere, working alone, taking too long on details no one would notice. The patience is the same. The belief that invisible work matters most.
Meet Russell Haines - The Person Behind Every Job
Russell Haines is Owner & Founder of the Queens branch of Hearthstone Chimney Co. He’s a certified chimney sweep with level-2 inspection credentials and over a decade of hands-on experience in flue systems, masonry repair, and fireplace restoration across New York’s variable climate. He’s trained directly with manufacturers on HeatShield cerfractory flue repair systems and Gelco stainless steel liner installations, and he insists that every technician working under this branch meet the same standard.
What separates Russell from a franchise technician sent from a dispatch hub is simple: he lives here. He knows which Queens chimneys were built with the soft mortar that crumbles after freeze-thaw cycles, which neighborhoods have the clay flue tiles that crack when oil equipment gets converted to gas. On weekends, you’ll find him at his daughter’s soccer games in Bellerose or walking the alley markets in Ozone Park. He believes a person who plans to be sweeping chimneys in Queens thirty years from now had better act like it today.
His personal commitment to you: if Russell wouldn’t have the work done in his own mother’s house, he won’t sign off on it in yours.
Our Promise to Queens Homeowners
We run this branch on four values we call our K.E.Y.S.
Krafted right. We use proper materials, trained journeymen, and no shortcuts. When we repaired a chimney in Douglaston last winter, we spent an extra half day matching the historic mortar color instead of slapping on whatever was in the truck. The homeowner noticed. We notice too.
Every time. The 400th job gets the same care as the first. Our camera inspection protocol doesn’t get skipped because we’re running behind.
Your home first. We work in your house the way we’d work in our mother’s. Boot covers, drop cloths, vacuuming the hearth before we leave. It’s not courtesy. It’s the minimum.
Standing behind it. The Keystone Standard: 90 days, in writing, no arguing. If it’s not right, we come back. No paperwork battle, no transfer to a warranty department that doesn’t answer.
Honest pricing means a flat-price sweep agreed before we book, and nothing recommended without camera evidence you can see for yourself. No surprises on the bill. We’ll be there when we say.
Our Credentials
Every professional working under the Hearthstone Chimney Co. name in Queens is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires. We maintain full insured and bonded status for your protection. This branch draws on over a decade of local experience in Queens conditions, from the salt-air exposure near Little Neck to the older masonry stock in Queens Village. We’ve built a strong local reputation by showing up, doing the work properly, and standing behind it.
Here’s why each credential matters when you invite someone into your home to work on a system that affects your family’s safety:
- State-licensed: New York requires specific competency standards for chimney professionals. A license means the person on your roof has met them, not just bought a brush and a magnet sign.
- Insured & bonded: If something goes wrong, your property is protected and you have recourse. Without this, a dropped tool through a skylight or a ladder scar on your siding becomes your problem.
- Local experience: Queens chimneys face specific challenges: freeze-thaw cycling, coastal moisture, conversions from oil to gas that leave oversize flues. Someone who’s worked here for years has seen your exact situation before.
- Documented reputation: We don’t ask you to trust us blindly. Our inspections produce photographs you keep, reports you can share with your insurance, and recommendations you can verify with a second opinion.
Rooted in Queens
This branch serves the neighborhoods we know by street name and building era: the 1920s colonials of Forest Hills with their original clay flue liners, the post-war ramblers in Fresh Meadows, the waterfront homes of Douglaston where salt air eats mortar faster than inland. We’ve swept chimneys in Kew Gardens apartments and Woodhaven row houses, in Bellerose Terrace capes and Ozone Park bungalows. We’re not passing through. We’re building something that lasts, the way a hearthstone should.
Written by Russell Haines, Owner at Hearthstone Chimney Co., serving Queens since 2014.