Meet the Team - Hearthstone Chimney Co.

Meet the Milford Team Behind Hearthstone Chimney Co.

Our Milford crew shows up in the same trucks, wearing the same uniforms, carrying the same tools we’ve used for more than four decades. What ties us together isn’t a handbook. It’s the K.E.Y.S. code Russell put in place back in 1984: Krafted right, Every time, Your home first, Standing behind it. We hire for skill, but we keep people for character. These are the faces you’ll see on your roof, in your basement, and at your door.

Call (610) 991-8179

Our People

Russell Haines, Owner

I’m the one who answers when things go sideways, and I still climb ladders when the job calls for it. Started this company in 1984 with a used brush set and a borrowed pickup, and I’ve learned that the best advertising is a homeowner who watches you lay down a drop cloth before you touch their hearth. I hold a CSIA Certified Chimney Sweep credential and a stubborn belief that every estimate should end with a number you can plan around, not a story about why it changed. My wife says I talk about flue liners at dinner parties. She’s not wrong, and she’s not invited to the next one.

Mike D., Lead Technician

Mike has been with us fourteen years, and he’s the reason we can promise most jobs in a single visit. He runs our Level-2 camera inspections in Milford and the surrounding Pike County towns, and he’s developed a reputation for finding cracked flue tiles that other sweeps missed entirely. CSIA certified with a specialty in masonry evaluation, Mike can tell you whether that spalling brick needs immediate attention or honest monitoring until next season. Off the clock, he restores vintage motorcycles in a garage that’s somehow cleaner than our shop. He claims it’s the same skill set: patience, torque specs, and knowing when to stop before you make it worse.

Carla R., Senior Installer

Carla handles our liner and rebuild work, and she’s installed more DuraFlex and HeatShield systems than anyone else in our network. She came to us from a commercial HVAC background, which means she thinks in airflow and pressure differentials while the rest of us are still squinting at the damper. Her certification through the National Fireplace Institute covers gas and solid-fuel installations, and she’s particularly good at talking homeowners through why a stainless liner costs what it costs and why the alternative might cost more later. She keeps a battered topographic map of the Delaware Water Gap in her truck because, as she puts it, “You can’t size a system right if you don’t know how the wind hits the ridge.” She hikes those trails every October with her two dogs, who are not invited on job sites.

James T., Service Coordinator

James is the live voice you get when you call (610) 991-8179 at 10 PM on a Saturday or 6 AM on a Tuesday. He’s been with us eight years, and he knows every technician’s schedule, every material lead time from Gelco and Famco, and exactly which Milford neighborhoods have the tighter driveways that affect our truck access. He doesn’t climb roofs, but he’s OSHA-10 certified so he understands what our crews face up there, and he translates that into realistic arrival windows he actually honors. James grew up in Shohola, three miles up Route 6, and he still fishes the Lackawaxen on opening day. He remembers callers by name, which sounds like a small thing until you’re the one with smoke backing up into your living room.

Darnell W., Apprentice Technician

Darnell joined us in 2023 after four years in residential construction, and he’s working through his CSIA certification while he trains under Mike on every type of system we service. He’s already our go-to for chimney cap and crown installations in the steeper-roofed homes near the Milford Knob, where the pitch demands rigging most crews won’t touch. Darnell has a knack for explaining what he’s doing while he’s doing it, which homeowners appreciate and which we suspect he learned from his grandfather, a pipefitter in Scranton. He lives in Matamoras, commutes past the Roebling Bridge every morning, and brings coffee for the shop that is consistently too strong. We’re working on that.

One Standard, Every Job

Every person on this page answers to the same 90-Day Done Right Promise, and every one of them has handed a homeowner their direct cell number when a job needed follow-up. We don’t franchise our name and hope for the best. Russell still reviews every camera inspection photo from Milford jobs, and Mike still calls him from a roof when he sees something unusual in a flue. The brands we specify, DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, Famco, and Copperfield, are the same whether we’re working on a 1790s stone farmhouse or a 2019 spec build. The pricing is flat and upfront because James won’t book it any other way, and the technicians are background-checked and uniformed because that’s who you’d want walking through your door. We’ve been in Pike County long enough to sweep chimneys for parents, then their children, then their children’s contractors who didn’t know who to call. That’s the standard. It doesn’t change because the crew is solid, the training is continuous, and Russell still picks up the phone.

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