How Hearthstone Chimney Co. Was Born in West Hartford
Back in 2014, we were working as a sweep for another outfit when we got sent to a job on Farmington Avenue. An older couple in a 1920s colonial had been told their flue was cracked and needed a full liner replacement. The quote they’d received was steep enough that they’d put off heating their living room for two winters. We ran a camera up that flue and found a half-inch gap in a mortar joint, maybe two feet down from the crown. Two hours with a proper tuckpointing mix, and they were burning again. The other company had either missed it or chosen not to say.
We drove home that evening angry in a way that doesn’t pass. West Hartford deserved someone who’d actually look before recommending a four-figure fix. That fall, we opened this branch of Hearthstone Chimney Co. right here in town. We promised ourselves three things: camera evidence before any recommendation, a written estimate with no surprises, and the Keystone Standard guarantee on every job. Twelve years later, those three promises haven’t changed.
Russell Haines’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
We didn’t grow up in a family of sweeps. We came to this work sideways, through a rental property we owned in Hartford with a chimney that wouldn’t draw. Three different companies came through. One said the flue was too small, another said we needed a stainless liner, a third just shrugged and suggested an electric insert. We ended up in the library basement, pulling old Hartford building codes, then on a ladder with a flashlight at 6 AM, watching how the morning sun hit the chimney crown. The problem was a partially collapsed smoke shelf, visible only from inside the firebox with the right angle of light.
A tradesman who trained us, an older sweep out of Windsor Locks, taught us to read a flue the way a farmer reads sky. He’d been at it thirty years and still got quiet before every inspection, still ran his brush by hand the first pass to feel what the flue was telling him. We spent two seasons riding with him, learning the smell of properly seasoned oak versus the acrid bite of creosote buildup, the sound of a loose tile knocking against a stainless rod, the particular gray of deteriorating mortar versus the darker stain of a past chimney fire.
What gets us out of bed is the same thing that kept us up that first year: the moment a homeowner sees the camera footage and understands what’s actually happening inside their wall. There’s a particular silence that falls when someone who’s been anxious for months finally sees the truth, plain and documented. If we weren’t doing this, we’d probably be restoring old houses, working with mortar and stone, solving puzzles that matter to the people living inside them. The work is physical, dirty, and precise. We wouldn’t trade it.
Meet Russell Haines - The Person Behind Every Job
Russell Haines is the Owner and Founder of Hearthstone Chimney Co. in West Hartford. He’s been running this branch since 2014, building a team of trained journeymen who understand that a chimney isn’t a vent, it’s the breathing system of a home where people gather. Russell holds the certifications his trade requires and insists every sweep working under this name does the same.
What separates Russell from a franchise technician sent from a dispatch board is simple: he’s the one who answers when something goes wrong. He lives in this area, knows which West Hartford neighborhoods have the 1950s ranch-style fireplaces with the shallow fireboxes, which ones have the pre-Revolutionary stacks that need a gentler hand. On weekends, he’s usually restoring an old stone wall on his property or fishing the Farmington River. He believes a person who says they’ll do something should do it, and that a handshake still means something in Hartford County.
Our commitment to you is direct: Russell reviews every camera inspection personally before any recommendation leaves this shop. If it’s not right, we’ll be back. No paperwork, no arguing.
Our Promise to West Hartford Homeowners
Our values aren’t framed on a wall. We try to live them on every job.
Krafted right. We use proper materials, not whatever’s cheapest this quarter. When we specify a liner, it’s DuraFlex or another brand we’ve watched perform in New England freeze-thaw cycles. Our masons know the difference between Type N and Type S mortar, and why one matters more than the other for a West Hartford winter.
Every time. The 400th inspection gets the same patience as the first. We’ve seen techs get sloppy in February, rushing to beat dark. We don’t. A flue doesn’t care about your schedule, and we don’t pretend otherwise.
Your home first. We work in your house the way we’d work in our mother’s. Drop cloths, shoe covers, vacuum after ourselves. We’ve heard the stories about sweeps who tracked soot through a living room. That’s not us.
Standing behind it. The Keystone Standard: 90 days, in writing, no arguing. If we missed something, we fix it. Period.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed chimney professionals, meeting Connecticut’s requirements for work in your home
- Insured & bonded for your protection and ours
- Years of local experience serving West Hartford and surrounding towns since 2014
- Strong local reputation built one job at a time across Hartford County
Here’s why each one matters when you’re letting someone work inside your house. State licensing means we’ve met the standards Connecticut sets for this trade, not just claimed expertise. Insurance and bonding protect you if something goes wrong on your property, a real risk when ladders, roofs, and masonry are involved. Local experience means we know how Hartford County’s clay soils shift chimneys, how the freeze-thaw cycle opens mortar joints, which local codes apply to your neighborhood. And reputation, real reputation, is the only credential you can’t buy. You earn it by showing up when you say, doing what you promised, and coming back if it’s not right.
Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires. We verify it. We don’t assume.
Rooted in West Hartford
We’ve swept chimneys in Elmwood, in the homes near West Hartford Reservoir, in the older colonials along Boulevard and the post-war splits off North Main. We’ve worked on fireplaces that haven’t drawn right since the 1978 oil crisis converted them, and on new inserts in condos near Blue Back Square. We know which streets still have the original terra cotta flue liners from the 1920s building boom, and which neighborhoods see the most creosote buildup from homeowners burning the green oak that drops every November.
We’re open Monday through Saturday, 7:30 AM to 8:00 PM, and Sundays the same hours when burning season’s heavy. Call us at (860) 743-1516. We’ll be there when we say.
Written by Russell Haines, Owner at Hearthstone Chimney Co., serving West Hartford since 2014.