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 Taunton Team Behind Hearthstone Chimney Co.
Our Taunton crew isn’t a rotating cast of subcontractors. These are the same faces that show up at homes from Weir Village to Whittenton, season after season. What ties them together isn’t a handbook - it’s the K.E.Y.S. code we actually use: Krafted right, Every time, Your home first, Standing behind it. Russell Haines built this team slowly, the same way you build a fire that lasts. No one here is learning on your chimney.
Our People
Russell Haines, Owner
I’ve been up and down chimneys in Bristol County since 1984, when I started Hearthstone with a brush, a ladder, and the stubborn belief that a homeowner deserves to see what I see. Forty-two years later, that hasn’t changed. I still carry a camera on every inspection, and I still explain the findings in plain English - no jargon, no theater. My job now is making sure every technician who wears our uniform treats your house like they’d treat their mother’s: lock the gate, lay down runners, and tell the truth even when it’s not what anyone wants to hear. I live in Taunton. You’ll see me at the hardware store, at the farmers market, at the counter at Coyle’s. That local visibility keeps me honest.
Mike D., Lead Technician & Level-2 Inspector
Mike joined us twelve years ago after a decade in commercial HVAC, and he brought with him a habit most residential techs never develop: he reads the manufacturer’s installation manual before he touches the equipment. He’s NFPA-certified for Level-2 inspections and has a particular eye for HeatShield relining work in the older masonry we see around Oakland and East Taunton. Mike’s the one who notices the cracked crown that three other companies missed, and he’ll stop the inspection to show you exactly why it matters. Off the clock, he restores vintage motorcycles in a garage that’s somehow more organized than our parts room.
Carla R., Senior Installer & Liner Specialist
Carla came to us from a DuraFlex distributor, where she spent eight years troubleshooting the installations other contractors had botched. She knows stainless steel liner sizing the way a tailor knows fabric - by touch, by burn pattern, by the specific draft behavior of Cape-style chimneys versus center-hall Colonials. She’s installed Olympia Chimney systems in hundred-year-old triple-deckers in Weir Village and Famco caps on waterfront homes where salt air eats lesser metal for breakfast. Carla keeps a notebook of every job she’s done since 2016, with sketches. She’ll reference your neighbor’s chimney by address if it helps explain what you’re looking at.
James T., Service Coordinator
James answers the phone when you call (774) 310-4281 at 10 PM on a Saturday because you smelled something odd from the fireplace. He’s the live person on the other end, every hour of every day, and he’s been doing it for us for six years. Before that, he dispatched for a plumbing company in Fall River, so he knows the difference between an emergency and an anxiety. James schedules around your kid’s nap, your shift at Morton Hospital, your vacation rental turnover. He knows which technician lives closest to Whittenton Junction, which one has the Gelco cap inventory in his van today, and whether that draft complaint from last February turned out to be a blocked flue or a negative pressure issue from the new range hood.
Derek S., Apprentice Technician
Derek’s in his third year with us, which means he’s past the “watch and carry” phase and into the “explain it back to me” phase. He holds his CSIA sweep certification and has started assisting Mike on Level-2 inspections, though he still gets sent to the roof for the measurements Carla double-checks later. Derek grew up in a 1920s bungalow near Taunton Green, so he understands firsthand why older chimneys behave differently than the diagrams in the textbook. He’s the one who asks the questions homeowners are too polite to ask, which makes him better at answering them. His current project: building a reference collection of every Copperfield component we stock, photographed and labeled, because he got tired of digging through the van.
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, how to train, and when to walk away from a job that doesn’t meet the standard. Russell Haines wrote it after a bad experience with a contractor in his own home, and he’s refined it across four decades of running Hearthstone Chimney Co. in Taunton and the surrounding communities.
Every technician here is background-checked and uniformed. Most jobs finish in a single visit because we stock professional-grade materials from DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, Famco, and Copperfield - no running to the supply house, no “we’ll come back next week.” The price we quote is the price on the invoice. The 90-Day Done Right Promise covers every job in writing, with no arguing. If it’s not right, we come back.
This team plans to be sweeping chimneys in Taunton for another thirty years. We act accordingly.
Written by Russell Haines, Owner at Hearthstone Chimney Co., serving Taunton since 1984.