Meet the Team - Hearthstone Chimney Co.

Meet the Freeport Team Behind Hearthstone Chimney Co.

We’re the crew that shows up at your door in Freeport when your chimney needs honest work done right. Most of us have been at this long enough to remember when Merrick Road looked different and the Nautical Mile was still finding its sea legs. 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 set that standard in 1984, and we still measure ourselves against it on every job from Roosevelt to Point Lookout.

Call (631) 735-5125

Our People

Russell Haines, Owner

I’ve been climbing roofs in Nassau County since 1984, back when Freeport’s waterfront was mostly commercial fishing and nobody had heard of a Level-2 camera inspection. I started Hearthstone Chimney Co. because I got tired of watching homeowners pay for work they couldn’t see or understand. These days I still run calls when we’re stacked up, but mostly I make sure our estimates mean something: the number you see is the number on the invoice, and if we miss something, the 90-Day Done Right Promise means we come back - in writing, no arguing. I live in the area, my kids went to school here, and I plan to be fixing flues in Freeport thirty years from now. That changes how you treat people.

Mike D., Lead Technician

Mike’s been with us twelve years, and he’s the guy we send when a chimney has three different problems pretending to be one. He’s CSIA-certified and specializes in troubleshooting draft issues in older Freeport homes, the kind built in the 1920s with flues that weren’t designed for modern inserts. Last March he tracked down a CO leak in a Baldwin colonial that two other companies had missed - turned out to be a hairline crack in a terracotta liner, invisible until he got the camera past the smoke shelf. Off the clock, Mike restores vintage motorcycles and brings that same patience to every liner pull he does.

Carla R., Senior Installer

Carla handles our DuraFlex liner installs and HeatShield resurfacing jobs, the kind of work where a quarter-inch off means doing it twice. She came to us from commercial HVAC eight years ago and brought a rigor we didn’t know we needed. She’s particularly good at explaining to homeowners exactly why their chimney needs what it needs, using the photos from our Level-2 inspections so they can see the spalling brick or the glazed creosote for themselves. Carla grew up in Roosevelt, still lives there, and on weekends you’ll find her coaching a youth basketball league at the Rec Center.

James T., Service Coordinator

James is the live voice you get when you call (631) 735-5125 at 10 PM on a Sunday because you smelled something wrong from your fireplace. He’s been with Hearthstone five years, and before that he dispatched for a mechanical contractor in Queens, so he knows how to sort real emergencies from things that can wait for daylight. James keeps the schedule honest - he won’t book us for same-day work we can’t actually complete, and he’ll walk you through what a Seasonal Tune-Up covers versus what might need a separate repair call. He fishes the south shore jetties when the striped bass are running, which means he understands tide tables and patience in equal measure.

Darnell W., Apprentice Technician

Darnell joined us in 2023 through a trade program at BOCES, and he’s already climbing better than some guys with a decade on him. He’s background-checked and uniformed like the rest of us, working toward his CSIA certification while he learns liner installation and crown rebuilding hands-on. Right now he shadows Mike on the tricky calls and handles a lot of our routine sweeps and cap installs in Freeport and Merrick, where homeowners have started asking for him by name. Darnell’s detail-oriented in a way you can’t teach - he once noticed a missing spark arrestor that had been overlooked for six years. He’s from Uniondale, and he’s serious about building a career he can stay in.

One Standard, Every Job

The five of us don’t work out of a central warehouse somewhere else. We’re based right here in Freeport, and when you book Hearthstone Chimney Co., you’re getting a crew that knows the local building stock: the post-war capes with their original terracotta flues, the waterfront properties taking salt air on their brickwork, the split-levels from the 1970s with factory-built chimneys that need specific parts from Olympia Chimney or Famco.

Every job gets the same treatment whether it’s an $89 Seasonal Tune-Up or a full liner rebuild. Camera inspection with photos you can see. A plain-English verdict on what needs doing now, what can wait, and what’s just fine. Upfront pricing with no surprises on the bill. And behind all of it, the 90-Day Done Right Promise - in writing, no arguing - because we’re not interested in being the cheapest call you make. We’re interested in being the last chimney company you need to call.

We’ve been at this over 42 years. The brands we use - DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, Famco, Copperfield - haven’t changed because they haven’t let us down. Our technicians are background-checked and uniformed, and most jobs get wrapped in a single visit so you’re not living around our schedule. That’s the Keystone Standard. It’s how Russell built this company, and it’s how we still run it today.

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