Meet the Team - Hearthstone Chimney Co.

Meet the Gaithersburg Team Behind Hearthstone Chimney Co.

We’re the crew that shows up at your door in Gaithersburg with boot covers, a camera rig, and the patience to explain what we found in plain English. Most of us have been at this long enough to remember when Kentlands was still farmland and the I-270 corridor wasn’t a parking lot at 5 p.m. What ties us together isn’t a handbook. It’s the K.E.Y.S. code we sign onto: 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 Quince Orchard to Montgomery Village.

Call (301) 719-5236

Our People

Russell Haines, Owner

I’ve been climbing roofs in Montgomery County since 1984, back when chimney sweeps still carried brushes that looked like they’d come off a Victorian movie set. These days I run the business, but I still pull on boots when we’re backed up in October or when a job needs eyes that have seen forty winters of freeze-thaw damage on Maryland brick. I hold a CSIA Certified Chimney Sweep credential and a firm opinion that a damper left open all summer is basically an open invitation for every squirrel in Montgomery County. When I’m not on a roof, I’m usually at the shop arguing that we should stock more Gelco caps because they actually survive our ice storms.

Marcus T., Lead Technician

Marcus has been with us twelve years, and he’s the reason our Level-2 inspections actually mean something. He came up through the trades as a mason’s helper in Baltimore before he got his CSIA certification and NFI Gas Specialist credential, and that foundation shows when he’s pointing out spalling brick versus cosmetic staining. He runs the camera on every job that involves a real estate transaction or an insurance claim, and he’s meticulous about documenting cracks to the eighth-inch because he’s seen too many homeowners get surprised by a “small” problem that turned into a liner replacement. Off the clock, he coaches youth basketball in Germantown and has a running bet with the rest of us about which neighborhood has the worst squirrel infiltration rate. Kentlands is currently winning.

Dana L., Senior Installer

Dana handles our liner installs, crown pours, and anything that involves scaffolding. She’s certified with HeatShield for cast-in-place liner restoration and trained with DuraFlex on their stainless steel systems, which matters more than it sounds because a poorly sized flex liner in a Gaithersburg colonial will either draft like a dream or smoke out your living room. Before she joined us eight years ago, she worked commercial HVAC, so she thinks in terms of system pressure and combustion air in a way that most residential sweeps don’t. She keeps a weathered copy of the IRC chimney code in her truck and has been known to cite specific sections to inspectors in Rockville. Her one concession to sentiment: she names every crow that nests in the chimneys we cap. “Walter” has been returning to a particular Lakelands flue for three years.

James R., Service Coordinator

James is the voice you get when you call (301) 719-5236 at 10 p.m. on a Saturday because you smelled something odd from the fireplace. He’s been with us four years, and before that he dispatched for a commercial electrical contractor, so he actually understands what our technicians are describing when they radio in from a roof. He schedules every job, confirms material orders for the DuraFlex and Olympia Chimney supplies we keep in stock, and makes sure the flat-price estimate you agree to is the number on the invoice. He lives in North Potomac and has developed an almost supernatural ability to estimate drive times during Montgomery County rush hour. His desk has a single framed photo: his daughter’s first fire in their own fireplace, after he’d made us all triple-check the install.

Elena V., Apprentice

Elena joined us last spring after completing the chimney technology program at a regional trade school, and she’s already pulling her own weight on standard sweeps and cap installs. She’s working toward her CSIA certification and shadows Marcus on every Level-2 inspection because she wants to learn camera work the right way, not just well enough to pass. Her background is unusual for this trade: she spent three years as a wildland firefighter in the Pacific Northwest, so she understands combustion behavior from the other end of the problem. She asks more questions than any apprentice we’ve had, which we count as a feature, not a bug. She’s currently obsessed with learning to identify mortar composition by sight, a skill that takes years in Maryland’s variable clay-soil conditions.

One Standard, Every Job

The K.E.Y.S. code isn’t a poster on a wall. It’s how we decide whether a crown repair can wait a season or needs addressing now, whether a liner quote is honest or padded, whether we call a homeowner back at 8 p.m. because we noticed something in the photos after we left. Every technician here carries the 90-Day Done Right Promise in writing on every invoice, and every one of us knows that “no arguing” means exactly that. If we missed something, we come back. No paperwork shuffle, no he-said-she-said.

We’ve been in Gaithersburg over 42 years. The brands we use, DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, Famco, and Copperfield, haven’t changed because they haven’t needed to. The faces on the crew have shifted some, but the standard hasn’t. We’re not trying to be the biggest chimney company in Montgomery County. We’re trying to be the one you call back next year because we did what we said, showed you the photos, and charged what we quoted. Done right, and we stand behind it.

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