Meet the Team - Hearthstone Chimney Co.

Meet the Paterson Team Behind Hearthstone Chimney Co.

We’ve got a crew of six who run the Paterson territory, and they share one thing: none of them want to come back and fix something twice. That sounds obvious, but in chimney work, doing it right the first time means knowing the difference between a flue that needs a sweep and a flue that’s three years from needing a rebuild. Our Paterson techs have seen every configuration of 1920s masonry, mid-century brick, and the newer prefab units going into condos near the Great Falls. They show up uniformed, background-checked, and ready to work. Russell Haines still rides along on complex jobs, and he trains every apprentice personally.

Our People

Russell Haines, Owner

I’ve been in chimneys since 1984, and I started Hearthstone because I got tired of watching homeowners pay twice for the same repair. I’m CSIA-certified and I hold a New Jersey Home Improvement Contractor license, but the credential that matters most is the one I can’t frame: I’ve inspected over 8,000 chimneys in Passaic County, and I can usually tell you what’s wrong before I get the ladder off the truck. I still climb roofs on liner jobs because I don’t trust anyone’s eyes but my own when we’re talking about a family’s carbon monoxide path. Off hours, I restore vintage motorcycles in a garage that’s got worse masonry than most of the houses we service.

Marcus T., Lead Technician

Marcus has been with us twelve years, and he runs the Level-2 camera inspections that separate a real problem from a scare tactic. He’s NFI-certified in gas and solid fuel, and he’s the guy we send when a homeowner’s gotten three different opinions and wants the tiebreaker. Marcus grew up in Eastside Paterson, so he knows which blocks have the old coal-converted flues and which have the 1970s zero-clearance units that builders slapped in without proper chase sizing. He keeps a notebook of every job, hand-written, because he doesn’t trust his phone not to die when he needs a measurement from 2019. On weekends he coaches youth basketball at the Eastside Park courts.

Dolores R., Senior Installer

Dolores joined us in 2016 after eight years doing commercial HVAC ductwork, and she brought a rigor to liner installs that changed how we do them. She’s factory-trained on DuraFlex and Olympia Chimney systems, and she’s installed more stainless liners in Paterson’s triple-decker housing stock than anyone else on our crew. Her specialty is the tight chase jobs where you’re working with 4 inches of clearance and a roof pitch that wants to slide you into the neighbor’s yard. Dolores lives in South Paterson, walks her dog past houses she’s worked on, and she’ll stop to check a cap if it looks crooked. She bakes sourdough and brings it to the shop on Mondays, which is the only reason the rest of us tolerate her perfectionism.

Vince K., Service Coordinator

Vince answers the phones that ring at 10 PM on a Saturday, and he actually knows what he’s talking about because he spent four years as a technician before he moved to the desk. He’s the one who tells you whether that smell means emergency or Tuesday, and he’s the one who makes sure Marcus or Dolores shows up with the right parts instead of a second trip. Vince schedules every job with buffer time built in, because chimney work doesn’t care about your next appointment. He’s from Hawthorne originally, married into a Paterson family, and he’s got a running bet with Russell about which neighborhood has the worst squirrel damage. He loses often and pays in coffee.

Jalen P., Apprentice

Jalen started with us in 2023, fresh out of Passaic County Tech’s HVAC program, and he’s learning the trade the old way: shadowing every senior tech, carrying the heavy stuff first, and asking questions until the answers make sense. He’s already CSIA-sweep-certified and he’s working toward his Level-1 inspection credential. Russell has him doing mortar patching on rebuilds because it builds patience, and Jalen’s getting good at matching century-old lime mortar to new work. He lives in Totowa now but he’s from Paterson’s 1st Ward, and he knows the local permit office better than some of the clerks. He plays drums in a jazz quartet that practices in a basement with a chimney we inspected pro bono.

One Standard, Every Job

Every technician on our Paterson crew operates under the same Keystone Standard that Russell established in 1984. That means the 90-Day Done Right Promise applies whether you’re getting a routine sweep in Lakeview or a full liner replacement in the Hillcrest section. We use the same professional-grade materials on every job, DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, Famco, and Copperfield, because builder-grade substitutes fail faster in New Jersey’s freeze-thaw cycles. Every inspection ends with photos you can see and a plain-English verdict, documented like an engineer, explained like a craftsman. The pricing we quote is the pricing you pay. Most jobs finish in a single visit. And if something’s not right, we come back. In writing, no arguing. That’s how we’ve operated for over 42 years, and that’s how we’ll keep operating for the next thirty.

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