How Hearthstone Chimney Co. Was Born in Severna Park
Back in 2014, we were living in Arnold and working as a sub for one of the big chimney outfits that ran crews up and down the Baltimore-Washington corridor. The money was steady, but the work ate at us. We’d walk into homes in Severna Park where the homeowner had just paid fourteen hundred dollars for a “level-3 inspection” that was nothing more than a flashlight glance and a scare story about cracked flue tiles. We’d see the same Gelco caps installed crooked, the same sloppy mortar patches that would wash out in two winters. The company didn’t care. They were booking four counties a day and moving on.
The moment that broke us was a call to a house on Benfield Road. An older couple, both retired Navy, had been told their entire chimney needed to be torn down and rebuilt. They were shaking. The estimate was sitting on their kitchen table, and they were trying to figure out which credit card could handle it. We ran our camera. The flue was sound. The crown had a hairline crack, maybe two hours of proper work. We fixed it that afternoon and spent another twenty minutes showing them the photos so they’d know what they’d paid for. They cried. Not from relief, from anger at what they’d almost been sold.
We called Russell Haines that night. We’d known him for years, trusted his eye for masonry, knew he wouldn’t sign off on work that wasn’t needed. Within the month, we’d hung our own shingle as the Severna Park branch of Hearthstone Chimney Co. The promise was simple: every inspection gets a camera, every finding gets a photo, every bill gets explained before a tool comes out of the truck. No surprises. No scare tactics. A square deal, every single time.
Russell Haines’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Russell didn’t stumble into chimney work. He was pulled into it by the same thing that still pulls him out of bed at 6:00 AM on a January morning when the phone starts ringing with smoke backing up into living rooms across Anne Arundel County. He likes knowing how things are put together. He likes the moment when a homeowner sees the inside of their own flue for the first time on our monitor, that mix of fascination and slight horror, and then the relief when we explain what it actually means.
He learned the trade the old way, starting as a ground guy for a sweep who worked out of a rust-eaten van in Glen Burnie. The first winter, he mostly carried buckets of creosote and learned to identify the smell of a properly burning fire versus one that was glazing up the flue. Soot has a texture, he’d tell anyone who asked. Dry and flaky means you’re burning hot and right. Sticky and tar-black means trouble’s coming. He’d run his fingers along a flue liner and know before the camera went up. That sensory knowledge, the feel of sound masonry versus the hollow ring of spalling brick, that’s not something you get from a certification course. That’s years of hands, eyes, and nose working together.
What gets Russell out of bed isn’t the job itself. It’s the homes. He’s been in enough houses in Severna Park, Crofton, Odenton, and down through Pasadena to know that a chimney isn’t just a vent. In these neighborhoods, especially the older Cape Cods and ranchers built in the fifties and sixties, the fireplace is where the family gathers. The hearthstone, literally, is where people orient their whole evening. When that system isn’t working right, when it’s leaking smoke or drafting cold air or, worst of all, sending carbon monoxide where it shouldn’t go, the whole house feels wrong. Russell fixes that. He makes the center of the home safe again. That’s the work.
If he weren’t doing this, he’d probably be restoring old boats. He’s got a sixteen-foot skiff in his garage in Cape St. Claire that’s been half-finished for three years, and he talks about it the same way he talks about a good tuckpointing job: patience, the right materials, no shortcuts. The same impulse that makes him reject cheap refractory mortar for a proper Olympia Chimney liner install is what keeps him sanding that hull by hand instead of buying a new one. Some things are worth doing right.
Meet Russell Haines - The Person Behind Every Job
Russell Haines is the Owner and Founder of the Severna Park branch of Hearthstone Chimney Co. He’s been working on chimneys since before this location opened in 2014, trained under journeymen sweeps who learned their trade when cameras were still a novelty and every diagnosis came from a mirror and a strong flashlight. He holds the state licensing required for chimney and fireplace work in Maryland, and he’s completed the level-2 inspection certification that lets us document what we find with the thoroughness our customers deserve.
What separates Russell from a corporate franchise technician is simple: he’s not working toward a bonus structure or a transfer to another market. He lives here. His kids went to school with kids from Fort Meade families. He knows which neighborhoods in Lake Shore have the pre-1980 clay flue liners that are starting to fail, and which builders in Parole cut corners on chimney clearance in the nineties. He’s not reading from a script when he explains your inspection report. He’s talking from memory.
Every morning, Russell reviews the day’s schedule personally. Every evening, he checks that the photo reports went out. His commitment to you is direct and plain: if he wouldn’t do it in his mother’s house, he won’t do it in yours. And if something’s not right, he’ll be the one who comes back to fix it. No paperwork, no arguing. That’s the Keystone Standard.
Our Promise to Severna Park Homeowners
Our values aren’t framed on a wall. They’re stamped on every invoice and every inspection report. We call them K.E.Y.S., and they guide every decision we make.
Krafted right. We use proper materials, trained journeymen, and no shortcuts. That means Famco stainless caps on coastal-exposed chimneys where galvanized would rust through in three seasons. It means Copperfield tools in our trucks because they’ve earned their reputation. When we rebuild a crown, we form it with the right slope and overhang, not a slapped-on patch that ponds water.
Every time. The four hundredth sweep gets the same care as the first. We’ve turned down jobs that were too large for our schedule because rushing means missing something. We’d rather explain a two-week wait than explain why we didn’t catch a deteriorated flue liner.
Your home first. We lay drop cloths before we unload a tool. We explain what we’re doing and why. We don’t start work until you’ve seen the camera footage and understand what you’re paying for. No surprises on the bill.
Standing behind it. The Keystone Standard: ninety days, in writing, no arguing. If it’s not right, we come back. Period.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed for chimney and fireplace work in Maryland
- Insured & bonded - protection for your property and our team while we’re in your home
- Years of local experience serving Anne Arundel County since 2014
- Strong local reputation built one appointment at a time across Severna Park, Arnold, Crofton, and our full service area
These aren’t resume points. They’re what lets you sleep soundly after a stranger climbs on your roof and works inside your house. Licensing means we’ve met Maryland’s standards for technical competence. Insurance and bonding mean if something goes wrong, you’re not chasing us for damages. Local experience means we know the building practices of this specific county, the freeze-thaw cycles that punish masonry here, the humidity that accelerates rust on metal components. 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 fixing it fast when you miss.
Rooted in Severna Park
We’ve swept chimneys on the water side of Benfield Boulevard and up in the hills near Kinder Farm Park. We’ve worked on the older homes off Ritchie Highway and the newer builds creeping toward Route 50. Russell’s kids played Little League at the fields behind Severna Park High School. We know the difference between a chimney that sees salt air off the Magothy and one inland near Jumpers Hole Road, and we adjust our recommendations accordingly. This isn’t a territory on a map for us. It’s where we live, where we raised our families, where we plan to be sweeping chimneys long enough to work on the same house twice. The hearthstone is the stone the whole home gathered around. We’re keepers of that tradition, and we take it seriously.
Written by Russell Haines, Owner at Hearthstone Chimney Co., serving Severna Park since 2014.