How Hearthstone Chimney Co. Was Born in White Plains
We opened this branch in 2014 because we’d seen enough. A homeowner in the Gedney Farms neighborhood called us after another company had quoted her a full liner replacement on a chimney that was barely ten years old. We ran our camera. The liner had a quarter-inch of creosote buildup and a cracked clay thimble, nothing more. A proper sweep, a new thimble, and she was safe for another decade. She’d been ready to spend thousands she didn’t have on work she didn’t need.
That wasn’t unusual. It was the norm in Westchester County. High-pressure sales, scare tactics, technicians who couldn’t explain what they were looking at. We’d watched the Hearthstone Chimney Co. standard work in other markets - certified sweeps, camera inspections, plain-English reports - and we knew White Plains deserved that same square deal. So we brought it here. Not the cheapest option. The one you never have to think about again.
Russell Haines’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Russell Haines didn’t stumble into this work. He was drawn to it the way some people are drawn to old houses, to things that were built to last.
Back in the early 2000s, he was working maintenance for a property management group covering buildings from Hartsdale down to Port Chester. One February morning, a tenant on Fisher Avenue called in a chimney fire. By the time Russell arrived, the fire department had it out, but the apartment smelled like a campfire left to die. Soot everywhere. The tenants were shaking. The thing that stuck with him wasn’t the damage. It was how preventable it had been. A basic sweep would have caught the glazed creosote. A level-2 inspection would have spotted the cracked flue that let sparks into the wall cavity.
He started reading everything he could find. NFPA 211. The CSIA manuals. He found a tradesman in Putnam County who’d been sweeping chimneys since the seventies and spent two years riding along, learning to read a flue the way a sailor reads water. The smell of soot and creosote became familiar, almost comforting. The weight of a proper brush on a rod. The particular sound of a camera scraping past a liner joint that isn’t seated right.
What gets Russell out of bed isn’t the work itself. It’s the quiet after. The homeowner who watches the camera feed and finally understands what’s above their fireplace. The call two years later from someone saying they haven’t thought about their chimney since we left, and that’s exactly the point. If he weren’t doing this, he’d probably be restoring old boats up in Maine, working with his hands on something that matters to someone.
Twelve years in, he still climbs the ladder on jobs. Still reviews every photo from every inspection. Still remembers the Fisher Avenue apartment.
Meet Russell Haines - The Person Behind Every Job
Russell Haines is Owner & Founder of Hearthstone Chimney Co. in White Plains. He’s a CSIA-certified sweep with level-2 inspection credentials and masonry repair training through the Chimney Safety Institute. Before launching this branch in 2014, he spent nearly a decade in building maintenance and apprenticed under a master sweep in Putnam County.
What separates Russell from a corporate franchise technician is simple: he’s the one who answers when something goes wrong. No dispatch center to hide behind. On weekends, you’ll find him restoring a 1968 Boston Whaler in his garage in Harrison, working through each repair with the same patience he brings to a flue relining. That boat’s taught him more about standing behind your work than any business book.
His commitment to every customer is direct: we’ll treat your chimney like it’s our mother’s. No recommendation without photo evidence. No bill without a written estimate agreed beforehand. And if it’s not right, we’ll be back. No paperwork, no arguing.
Our Promise to White Plains Homeowners
Our values aren’t posters on a wall. We call them K.E.Y.S. - and we use them.
Krafted right. We use proper materials: Gelco stainless liners when relining is truly needed, Olympia Chimney components for rebuilds, Famco and Copperfield hardware for caps and dampers. Our journeymen are trained, not handed a brush and a van. A sweep in Thornwood last winter took four hours because the flue had a hidden offset from a 1950s renovation. We didn’t rush it. We got it right.
Every time. The 400th job gets the same care as the first. We log every inspection photo. We review them. Russell still spot-checks reports from jobs he didn’t run.
Your home first. Drop cloths from the door to the hearth. HEPA vacuums, not shop vacs that blow soot into your living room. We work in your house the way we’d work in our mother’s.
Standing behind it. The Keystone Standard: 90 days, in writing, no arguing. Applied to every chimney we touch.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed chimney sweep contractor in New York
- Insured & bonded for residential and commercial work
- CSIA-certified sweeps on staff
- Level-2 inspection qualified for real estate transactions and insurance claims
- Years of local experience serving Westchester County communities
- Strong local reputation built one job at a time since 2014
Why this matters to you: a state license means we’ve met New York’s standards for contractors working in your home. Insurance and bonding protect you if something goes wrong on your property. CSIA certification means our sweeps have passed the industry’s recognized examination, not just a weekend course. And level-2 inspection qualification means we can document your chimney’s condition with the thoroughness insurance companies and home inspectors expect. When someone works on the system that vents fire and carbon monoxide from your home, you want more than a friendly face. You want proof they know what they’re doing.
Rooted in White Plains
We’ve swept chimneys in the historic homes of the Battle Hill neighborhood, inspected flues in the condos near City Center, and relined fireplaces from Rye Brook up through Valhalla. Russell lives in Harrison, but White Plains is where this branch was built. We’ve watched the farmers market expand on Court Street, sent our techs through the construction on the Hutch during every summer repaving, and learned which houses in Gedney Farms have the original clay liners from the 1920s build. The hearthstone is the stone the whole home gathered around. That’s not just our name. It’s how we think about every house we enter.
Written by Russell Haines, Owner at Hearthstone Chimney Co., serving White Plains since 2014.