How Hearthstone Chimney Co. Was Born in Staten Island
We opened this branch in 2014 because Staten Island needed something the rest of the city wasn’t offering. Before that, we’d watched too many homeowners get the runaround - technicians who wouldn’t climb onto a steep roof, companies that sold liners to people who didn’t need them, crews that left soot on the carpet and a bill that didn’t match the quote.
The moment that stuck with us was a call from a homeowner in Great Kills. She’d paid another company to fix a smoking fireplace, and they’d sold her a stainless steel liner she couldn’t afford, installed it crooked, and left the original problem untouched. We came out, ran a camera, and found a cracked crown letting water into the flue - a repair that cost a fraction of what she’d already spent. She sat at her kitchen table and cried. Not from relief, from anger at being taken.
We drove home that night and decided: if we brought Hearthstone to Staten Island, we’d do it with the Keystone Standard already in our pocket - honest inspection, photo evidence, a written quote that doesn’t change, and work that stands for 90 days guaranteed. No surprises on the bill. We’ll be there when we say.
Russell Haines’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Russell Haines didn’t stumble into chimney work. He was drawn to it the way some people are drawn to old houses or mechanical clocks - by the feeling that something honest was being lost, and someone needed to learn it properly.
He started by apprenticing under a tradesman in another state, a man who’d been sweeping chimneys since before Russell was born. The training wasn’t in a classroom. It was climbing ladders in November rain, learning to read creosote buildup by the smell of it, understanding how a draft behaves differently in a two-story colonial versus a ranch. Russell spent his first winter with hands that wouldn’t warm up until April, carrying a brush kit and a flashlight into flues that hadn’t been opened in decades.
What hooked him was the moment of showing a homeowner what was actually inside their chimney. He’d lower the camera and watch their face change - sometimes fear, sometimes fascination, always the dawning realization that they’d been living with something they couldn’t see. That transparency became his religion. The camera doesn’t lie. A photo of a cracked flue tile is worth more than a thousand warnings about carbon monoxide.
Twelve years later, Russell still climbs when the roof allows, still runs the camera on the tricky jobs, still feels the same satisfaction when a draft pulls clean and a fireplace draws the way it was meant to. If he weren’t doing this, he’d probably be restoring old boats or fixing vintage motorcycles - something with his hands, something that rewards patience, something where cutting corners only means doing it twice.
What gets him out of bed is the same thing that got him into this: the homeowner who finally understands what they have, what they need, and what they don’t. No one should cry at their kitchen table over a chimney bill.
Meet Russell Haines - The Person Behind Every Job
Russell Haines is Owner & Founder of Hearthstone Chimney Co. in Staten Island. He holds state licensure and has completed advanced training in level-2 chimney inspections, masonry repair, and solid-fuel appliance installation. He’s certified to work with DuraFlex liner systems and has trained his crew on proper HeatShield cerfractory flue repair application.
Unlike a corporate franchise technician who might be in your home one season and gone the next, Russell has built this branch from a single van to a full team, personally training each sweep who works under the Hearthstone name. He lives locally, knows the building stock from Tottenville to St. George, and can tell you which neighborhoods have the clay flue tiles that fail first and which have the unlined brick chimneys that need the most careful watching.
On weekends, you’ll find him working on his own old house - a 1920s Dutch Colonial with a fireplace he rebuilt himself - or fishing off the South Shore. He believes a person who works with their hands should have something to show for it at home, too.
His commitment to you is simple: he’ll treat your chimney the way he treats his own. That means no work without showing you why, no bill you didn’t agree to, and no call that goes unanswered during business hours.
Our Promise to Staten Island Homeowners
We operate by four values we call K.E.Y.S.
Krafted right means trained journeymen, proper materials, no shortcuts. We use Famco caps and Copperfield flashing on our masonry jobs because we’ve seen what cheap hardware does after three winters of Staten Island salt air. When we rebuild a crown, we form it with a proper wash and overhang - not a slopped blob of mortar that’ll crack by spring.
Every time means the 400th job gets the care of the first. We keep a written checklist for every inspection, and Russell spot-checks jobs randomly. Not because we don’t trust our crew - because trust is built on verification, not assumption.
Your home first means we work in your house the way we’d work in our mother’s. Drop cloths on every floor we cross, HEPA vacuums running while we sweep, and a walk-through before we leave so you see what we saw.
Standing behind it means the Keystone Standard: 90 days, in writing, no arguing. If it’s not right, we come back. No paperwork, no runaround.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed chimney contractor
- Insured & bonded for residential work
- Years of local experience serving Staten Island and Brooklyn
- Strong local reputation built since 2014
Here’s why each one matters when you’re letting someone into your home with ladders, power tools, and access to your roof. State licensure means we’ve met New York’s requirements for training and accountability - not every handyman with a brush qualifies. Insurance and bonding protect your property if something goes wrong; without it, you’re relying on someone’s personal promise and hoping their check clears. Local experience means we know the permit office at the Staten Island borough hall, we understand how the salt air off the Arthur Kill accelerates crown deterioration, and we’ve worked on the exact chimney construction common in New Dorp, Great Kills, and Tottenville. Reputation is everything in a community this tight - we can’t afford to burn a neighbor because word travels.
Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires. We don’t send anyone to your home who couldn’t pass Russell’s own inspection.
Rooted in Staten Island
This branch was built for the neighborhoods we serve. We’ve swept chimneys in the pre-war colonials near Silver Lake, the waterfront homes of Tottenville catching the full brunt of harbor wind, and the mid-century ranches of New Dorp with their original terracotta flue liners. We’ve worked through nor’easters that made ladder work impossible and heat waves that turned attics into ovens, always scheduling around what Staten Island weather allows.
Our crew lives here. They buy coffee on Forest Avenue, know which streets flood in a hard rain, and understand that a “quick job” in Great Kills might mean navigating a driveway built for a Model T. We’re not dropping in from somewhere else. We’re already home.
Written by Russell Haines, Owner at Hearthstone Chimney Co., serving Staten Island since 2014.