How Hearthstone Chimney Co. Was Born in Allentown
We opened this branch in 2014 because we’d seen enough. A homeowner in West Allentown called us after another company told her she needed a full liner replacement - $4,800, cash preferred, no written estimate. She’d already written the check when something felt wrong. We sent our camera up her flue that same week. The liner had a single cracked tile, six feet up. We repaired it with HeatShield, showed her the before-and-after photos, and she paid less than a fifth of what she’d been quoted. She cried in her kitchen. Not from relief - from anger at being played.
That was the week we decided Allentown needed a different kind of chimney company. Not the fastest. Not the cheapest. The kind that looks you in the eye, shows you what it found, and lets you decide. Hearthstone Chimney Co. already had that reputation in other Pennsylvania markets. Bringing it here meant building a local team that understood Allentown’s housing stock: the 1920s twins in East Allentown with their original terracotta flues, the mid-century ranches in South Whitehall with metal chimneys that rot from the inside out, the stone hearths in Emmaus that someone’s grandfather built by hand. We promised to treat every one like the hearthstone it was - the stone the whole home gathered around.
Russell Haines’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Russell didn’t stumble into this work. He was pulled into it by the smell of old soot and the weight of a proper brush.
Back in the early 2000s, he was working construction around the Lehigh Valley, mostly framing and finish carpentry. A general contractor asked him to help on a chimney rebuild in Catasauqua - just labor, mixing mortar, hauling brick. The mason was a tradesman who’d been at it forty years, hands like cured leather, and he let Russell run the first camera inspection he’d ever touched. It was an old Snakeye, the kind with a CRT monitor that weighed thirty pounds. They pushed it up a flue in a house built 1897. The screen filled with creosote glaze, thick and shiny as molasses, and Russell remembers the exact moment he understood: nobody had looked in there for decades. The family was burning fires three nights a week, sending their kids to bed upstairs, breathing whatever that flue was backing into the house. They didn’t know. Nobody had told them.
That was the moment. Not dramatic. No lightning strike. Just the weight of realizing that every fireplace in every home he’d ever been in was either safe or it wasn’t, and almost nobody could tell the difference from looking.
He started apprenticing with that mason after his construction shifts. Learned to read a flue like reading grain in wood. Learned that Allentown’s freeze-thaw cycles - hard winters, wet springs - destroy mortar joints from the outside in, and that you can’t see it from the living room. Learned the smell of a properly drafted fire versus one that’s spilling CO into the basement. If he weren’t doing this, he’d probably still be building houses, and he’d be good at it. But he’d miss the part where he hands a homeowner a photo of their own chimney’s interior and watches them understand their house in a new way. That’s what gets him out of bed. That, and the knowledge that somewhere in Allentown today, someone is lighting a fire in a flue that hasn’t been inspected since the Bush administration.
Twelve years running this branch, and he still goes on initial inspections when he can. Still carries a flashlight in his truck that he doesn’t need, just to have it. Still notices chimneys on houses when he’s driving through Fullerton or Macungie, pointing out crown damage to whoever’s in the passenger seat, diagnosing from sixty feet away.
Meet Russell Haines - The Person Behind Every Job
Russell Haines, Owner & Founder, Hearthstone Chimney Co. - Allentown
Russell leads every aspect of this branch’s operations, from hiring to quality control to the occasional callback he insists on handling personally. He’s trained through the Chimney Safety Institute of America and holds certification for level-1 and level-2 inspections. More importantly, he’s spent twelve years in Lehigh Valley attics and basements, learning what the textbooks don’t cover: how a Breinigsville rancher’s fireplace behaves differently than a Fountain Hill Victorian’s, why Emmaus limestone shifts the way it does, when a repair can wait and when it can’t.
What sets him apart from a franchise technician is simple: he’s not building toward a promotion out of the field. This is the job. He lives in the area, his kids went to school here, and he’ll be here when you need him next year. On weekends, he’s usually restoring an old Stanley hand plane or fishing the Little Lehigh - slowly, methodically, the same way he approaches a flue repair. His personal commitment to every customer is straightforward: you’ll get the same answer he’d give his own mother, and if he’s wrong, he’ll make it right without you having to ask twice.
Our Promise to Allentown Homeowners
Our values aren’t posters on a wall. We call them K.E.Y.S., and we use them to settle real disputes.
Krafted right means we specify DuraFlex liners or HeatShield resurfacing only when the job actually calls for it, not because it’s the upsell of the month. A journeyman on our crew refused to sign off on a rebuild last March because the mortar wasn’t curing in the cold - we delayed the job, absorbed the cost, and the homeowner in Ancient Oaks still calls us back.
Every time is how we treat the 400th inspection like the first. No shortcuts because we’re running late, no skipped photos because the battery’s low.
Your home first means we lay runners, we ask about your dog, and we don’t track soot through your kitchen. Russell’s policy: if we wouldn’t do it in our mother’s house, we don’t do it in yours.
Standing behind it is The Keystone Standard - 90 days, in writing, no arguing. If it’s not right, we come back. Period.
Honest pricing means a flat-rate sweep agreed before we book, and no surprises on the bill. Quality parts mean we source Gelco caps and Olympia Chimney components when the application calls for them, not whatever’s cheapest this week. And standing behind every job means exactly that - not a slogan, a signed guarantee.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed - Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license their state requires for chimney and fireplace work.
- Insured & bonded - Coverage that protects your property while we’re on it, and you if something goes wrong.
- Years of local experience - This branch has served Allentown and the surrounding communities since 2014. Russell has been in the trade longer.
- Strong local reputation - Built one appointment at a time, one callback handled properly, one homeowner who tells their neighbor.
Here’s why each one matters when you’re letting someone work in your home. State licensing means someone’s verified they know the difference between a fire hazard and a cosmetic issue. Insurance means if a ladder slips or a tool drops, you’re not calling your own agent. Local experience means we’ve seen what Allentown’s weather does to chimneys - the ice dams in Hokendauqua, the wind-driven rain in Coplay - and we don’t guess. Reputation means we can’t afford to burn you, because we plan to be sweeping your neighbor’s chimney next year.
Rooted in Allentown
We’re not passing through. This branch was built here, staffed here, and intended to stay. Our sweeps live in Northampton County and Lehigh County, not dispatched from some regional hub. We know that the Emmaus Fair happens in late August, that the church roof fund in Catasauqua always needs help, that the best view of the city is from the top of a ladder on a clear October morning in West Park. We’ve worked on chimneys in every neighborhood we serve - from the row homes near St. Luke’s to the new construction in Breinigsville that still needs its first proper inspection. When you call (610) 632-1394, you reach a live coordinator who connects you with our local team. That’s how a company acts when it plans to be in town in thirty years.
Written by Russell Haines, Owner at Hearthstone Chimney Co., serving Allentown since 2014.