Meet the Team - Hearthstone Chimney Co.

Meet the Queens Team Behind Hearthstone Chimney Co.

We’re the crew that shows up at your door in Queens when the chimney needs sweeping before the first cold snap, or when a cap’s blown off in a Nor’easter off the Long Island Sound. Every one of us was hired for hands that know the work and a manner that doesn’t waste your time. We don’t do sales scripts. We do the job, explain what we found, and leave your place cleaner than we found it. That’s the standard Russell set in 1984, and it’s the standard we still hold.

Call (516) 531-6315

Our People

Russell Haines, Owner

I started Hearthstone Chimney Co. in 1984, working out of a used van with a brush set I’d bought from a retiring sweep in Glen Oaks. Forty-two years later, I’m still the one who answers when something goes sideways on a job. I hold a CSIA Certified Chimney Sweep credential and a New York City Master Fire Suppression Piping license, though what matters more is that I’ve crawled through flues in Forest Hills colonials, Bayside ranches, and Astoria walk-ups enough times to know the local brickwork and the local weather patterns both. I keep a collection of damaged flue tiles in the shop, labeled by neighborhood, because nothing explains a problem to a homeowner like the piece that failed. When I’m not on a roof, I’m usually restoring a 1968 Ford F-250 that has outlasted three of my work trucks.

Mike T., Lead Technician

Mike’s been with us fourteen years, and he’s the one we send when a Level-2 inspection turns up something that needs a second pair of eyes trained on it. He’s CSIA-certified and holds a factory certification from Olympia Chimney for their stainless liner systems, which means he can size and install a liner in a Flushing Victorian without the guesswork that sends other crews back for a redo. Mike grew up in Jackson Heights in a third-floor apartment with a non-working fireplace his mother used for dried flowers, so he gets particular satisfaction from making a drafty hearth actually function. He carries a small LED flashlight on a lanyard even in daylight, a habit from his first years working unlit basements in Sunnyside.

Angela R., Senior Installer

Angela runs our cap, crown, and masonry crew, and she’s the reason we can promise most jobs in a single visit. She came to us eight years ago from a commercial concrete background, which shows in her crowns, pitched and sealed to shed water the way Queens roofs need them to. She’s factory-trained on Gelco and Famco cap systems and has developed a method for custom copper caps in Bellerose that doesn’t require a two-week shop order. Angela lives in Fresh Meadows and can usually identify the exact year a house was built by the brick pattern and mortar mix, a skill she picked up walking the neighborhood with her contractor father as a kid. She keeps a notebook of every crown she’s poured, with sketches, because she likes seeing the progression.

Darnell J., Service Coordinator

Darnell is the live voice you get when you call (516) 531-6315 at 10 PM on a Saturday because smoke’s backing up into the living room. He’s been with us six years, and before that he dispatched for a Queens HVAC company, so he knows the difference between a true emergency and something that can wait for morning without soft-selling either way. He schedules our routes by neighborhood to keep drive times down, which is how we manage to hit Woodhaven, Howard Beach, and Whitestone in a day without keeping anyone waiting. Darnell is studying for his CSIA certification in his off hours because he wants to understand the field reports he reads aloud to customers. He has a map of 1940s Queens tacked above his desk for no practical reason except that he likes knowing what used to be there.

Tomás G., Apprentice Technician

Tomás is in his second year with us, working toward his CSIA certification while he learns the trade from Mike and Angela both. He handles the prep work, the drop cloths, the HEPA vacuums, and the initial camera runs, and he’s already better at navigating tight Queens basements than some sweeps with a decade on him. He came to us from a job restoring brownstone facades in Bedford-Stuyvesant, so he understands mortar, water intrusion, and the particular arrogance of old brick. Tomás lives in Elmhurst and commutes by bicycle when weather permits, which means he’s unusually fit for the ladder work and unusually conscious of how much soot a set of clothes can hold. He’s the one who asks the questions the rest of us stopped asking years ago, and sometimes that gets us to a solution we missed.

One Standard, Every Job

The K.E.Y.S. code isn’t a poster in our break room. It’s how we decide who to hire and how to handle the call when something isn’t right. Krafted right, Every time, Your home first, Standing behind it. The 90-Day Done Right Promise means if we miss something, we come back. No paperwork to dig up, no argument about whose fault it was. We’ve been in Queens long enough to know that a homeowner who gets the runaround tells the block, and a homeowner who gets a square deal does the same. We’re planning to be here in thirty years. We act accordingly.

Every technician on this page is background-checked, uniformed, and trained on the professional-grade brands we use exclusively: DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, Famco, and Copperfield. No substitutes, no corner-cutting. The number on your estimate is the number on your invoice. Done right, and we stand behind it.

Written by Russell Haines, Owner at Hearthstone Chimney Co., serving Queens since 1984.