How Hearthstone Chimney Co. Was Born in Fairfield
We opened our Fairfield branch in 2014, but the moment we knew this market needed us came a few months before, on a raw February afternoon in the Stratfield neighborhood. A homeowner had called three companies about a smoking fireplace. Two never showed. The third sent someone who walked the roof for five minutes, declared the flue “probably fine,” and handed her a bill for $280 with a recommendation for a $4,200 liner replacement she couldn’t afford and didn’t understand. She called us that evening, not because she knew our name, but because a tradesman who’d trained us mentioned we were coming to Fairfield.
We spent two hours in her home. Camera up the flue. Photos she could see. The real problem was a partially collapsed clay liner at the second bend, something a level-1 sweep would miss entirely. We repaired it for a fraction of what she’d been quoted. She cried. Not from relief about the money, but because someone had finally told her the truth. That night, driving home across the Post Road with the heater blasting against the sleet, we made the promise that still governs every job we take: no recommendation without camera evidence, no invoice without a square deal, no homeowner left guessing what’s wrong with their own house.
Fairfield deserved better than what the chimney trade was offering then. We’re still here because enough homeowners agreed.
Russell Haines’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Russell Haines didn’t stumble into chimney work. He was pulled into it by the physics of it, the smell of old soot and mortar, the way a draft problem reveals itself in the particular whistle of a flue. Before he ever put on a Hearthstone uniform, he spent years working alongside a tradesman who’d trained in the old apprentice system, someone who taught him to read a chimney the way a sailor reads water. That education happened in basements and on rooftops, in the damp New England shoulder seasons when homeowners first light fires and discover what broke over the summer.
The work got into Russell’s hands. He can feel a cracked flue tile through a flexible rod before the camera confirms it. He knows the particular sulfur smell of a nest versus the acrid warning of creosote glazing. Ten-plus years in this trade means he’s crawled through Fairfield County attics in August heat when the wasps were active, stood on ice-slicked ridges in Weston in January, and learned which Milford neighborhoods have the 1920s masonry that spalls after hard freezes. The experience isn’t a credential he lists. It’s a body of knowledge he carries.
What gets him out of bed isn’t the work itself, though he loves the work. It’s the moment in a job when a homeowner sees their own flue on the tablet screen and understands, finally, what’s been happening in their house. The confusion leaves their face. They can make a real decision. If he weren’t doing this, he’d probably be building furniture in a drafty barn somewhere, working with his hands, solving tangible problems for people who appreciate craft. The hearthstone trade chose him because it’s the same impulse: making something safe and right that a family will gather around for decades.
Meet Russell Haines - The Person Behind Every Job
Russell Haines is the Owner and Founder of Hearthstone Chimney Co. in Fairfield. He holds the training and certifications required for level-2 inspections, masonry evaluation, and solid-fuel appliance installation. More importantly, he’s the person who reviews every photo from every inspection, who calls homeowners back when they have questions about their report, and who still carries his own rods and brushes on jobs where the flue geometry demands it.
What separates Russell from a corporate franchise technician is simple: he’s not filling a route. He’s building a reputation in a town where his kids go to school and his neighbors hire him. On weekends when the weather holds, you’ll find him restoring an old wooden canoe in his garage, working slowly, sanding between coats, refusing to rush a finish. That same patience goes into your chimney. He’ll tell you directly: “If we can’t stand behind it, we won’t sell it.” That’s not a slogan. It’s how he decides what jobs to take.
Our Promise to Fairfield Homeowners
Our values aren’t posters on a wall. We call them our K.E.Y.S., and we use them to settle real disputes about real jobs.
Krafted right means we source proper materials, whether that’s a Gelco stainless liner or Olympia Chimney components sized exactly to your appliance, installed by people who’ve trained on them. We once refused a job in Easton because the homeowner had already bought incompatible parts online. We lost the revenue. We kept our sleep.
Every time means the 400th sweep gets the rod pressure, the drop cloth placement, the final vacuum pass of the first. Our policy: if a technician wouldn’t do it in their mother’s house, they don’t do it in yours.
Your home first means we lay runners, we wear boot covers, we explain before we proceed, and we never pressure a sale. The camera inspection is included because you deserve to see what we see.
Standing behind it is our Keystone Standard: 90 days, in writing, no arguing. If it’s not right, we come back. No paperwork battle, no transfer to a warranty department that doesn’t answer.
A square deal. No surprises on the bill. We’ll be there when we say.
Our Credentials
Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires. We’re state-licensed, insured and bonded, with years of local experience and a strong local reputation built one job at a time.
Here’s why each credential matters when you’re letting someone into your home:
- State-licensed: Connecticut requires specific training and examination for chimney professionals. This isn’t a business registration anyone can buy. It means someone with authority has verified we know the difference between a fire hazard and a maintenance issue.
- Insured and bonded: Accidents on ladders happen. Damage to roofs happens. If we’re working on your property, our coverage protects your home and your finances. Never hire a sweep who can’t show current proof.
- Years of local experience: Fairfield County chimneys have specific problems: salt air corrosion near the shore, freeze-thaw damage in the inland hills, the particular construction eras of Greenfield Hill versus Black Rock versus Southport. Someone who learned this trade in Texas won’t know what your flue has been through.
- Strong local reputation: We live where we work. A bad job doesn’t result in an anonymous review. It results in seeing that homeowner at the grocery store, at a school event, at the town dock. That accountability changes how you treat people.
Rooted in Fairfield
We’ve swept chimneys in the Stratfield Historic District, diagnosed draft problems in Greenfield Hill farmhouses, and done level-2 inspections before home sales in Southport’s coastal zone. Russell’s kids have grown up in Fairfield schools. We’ve watched the downtown transform and stayed through it. When we say we’re local, we mean we know which streets flood in a hard rain, which neighborhoods lost trees in the last big storm, and which chimneys that storm damaged. The hearthstone is the stone the whole home gathered around. That’s not just our name. It’s the standard we work to in every house we enter.
Written by Russell Haines, Owner at Hearthstone Chimney Co., serving Fairfield since 2014.