How Hearthstone Chimney Co. Was Born in Woburn
It was a Tuesday morning in late October, 2014. Russell Haines had just finished a sweep over in Burlington and stopped for coffee at the Dunkin’ on Main Street in Woburn when a woman approached him in the parking lot. She’d noticed the truck. Her chimney had been “inspected” by another company the week before, and they’d told her she needed $4,200 in liner work or her house would burn down. She was shaking. Russell asked if they’d shown her photos. They hadn’t. He offered to look, free of charge.
What he found was a chimney that needed a sweep, some minor pointing, and honest advice about burning seasoned hardwood. The liner was fine. He showed her on the camera. She cried, relieved and angry in equal measure. Russell drove home that afternoon knowing Woburn needed something different. Not another company scaring homeowners into work they couldn’t verify. Not another franchise sending kids with clipboards. He called the parent company that evening and put in for the Woburn territory. The branch opened that winter with one promise: every customer sees what we see, and nothing gets recommended without proof they can hold in their hands.
Russell Haines’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Russell didn’t grow up dreaming about flue liners. He fell into this work the way most honest tradesmen do, through a combination of necessity and accident. Back in his twenties, he was renting a drafty triple-decker in Medford with a fireplace that smoked so badly the landlord threatened eviction. Three sweeps came through, took their fee, and left the problem unchanged. The fourth was an old tradesman who taught Russell to read a smoke pattern like a mechanic reads an engine. That afternoon, Russell learned about negative pressure, about how a bathroom fan three rooms away can pull smoke down a flue, about the smell of creosote that tells you more than any mirror.
He started tagging along on weekends. The work smelled like soot and cedar ash. His hands cracked in winter from the dry air and the brick dust. He didn’t care. There was something about standing in someone’s living room, looking up a dark passage that hadn’t been properly seen in decades, and knowing you were the one who could make it safe. The camera changed everything for him. The first time he showed a homeowner a cracked flue tile on the screen, watched their face shift from suspicion to understanding, he knew this was how the trade should be practiced.
Twelve years later, what gets Russell out of bed is still that moment. Not the sale. The moment when someone understands their own house better than they did before he arrived. If he weren’t doing this, he’d probably be restoring old boats, something similarly patient and similarly necessary. He likes work you can’t fake.
Meet Russell Haines - The Person Behind Every Job
Russell Haines, Owner and Founder of Hearthstone Chimney Co. in Woburn, has spent twelve years in the chimney trade, the last decade leading this branch. He holds state licensure and has completed advanced training in level-2 inspection protocols, masonry restoration, and the proper installation of stainless steel liner systems from Olympia Chimney and DuraFlex.
What separates Russell from a corporate franchise technician is simple: he’s the one who answers for the work. His name is on the truck, on the inspection report, and on the guarantee. When he’s not on a roof or in a flue, he’s usually fishing the Mystic River or working on a 1986 Boston Whaler he’s been restoring in his garage in Pinehurst for three years. He believes in doing a thing right or not doing it. Every customer gets his direct line, and he returns calls personally.
His commitment to you is straightforward: “I’ll treat your chimney like it’s in my mother’s house. Nothing less.”
Our Promise to Woburn Homeowners
Our values aren’t poster slogans. They’re the K.E.Y.S. we actually use to judge our own work.
Krafted right. We use proper materials, trained journeymen, and no shortcuts. Russell still refuses to use cheap aluminum caps that corrode in three New England winters. Famco and Copperfield hardware cost more, and they last.
Every time. The 400th job gets the same care as the first. We sweep to the same standard in July that we do in October. No seasonal rush changes our process.
Your home first. We lay drop cloths, we wear boot covers, we explain before we start. Russell once stopped a job in Winchester because the homeowner’s daughter was napping upstairs and the vacuum would wake her. He came back at six that evening. No charge for the return.
Standing behind it. The Keystone Standard: 90 days, in writing, no arguing. If it’s not right, we come back. No paperwork, no runaround.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed chimney sweep and inspection professional
- Insured & bonded for residential work throughout Middlesex County
- Years of local experience serving Woburn and surrounding communities since 2014
- Strong local reputation built on documented inspections and repeat customers
These credentials matter because you’re letting someone into your home, often your basement, sometimes your roof. State licensure means Russell has met the Commonwealth’s training and examination requirements. Insurance and bonding protect your property if something goes wrong. Local experience means he knows how Woburn’s freeze-thaw cycles affect masonry, how the older homes in the North Woburn hills differ from the newer construction near Interstate 93, and which neighborhoods see the most creosote buildup from inefficient inserts. A strong local reputation means you can ask around. Someone on your street has likely used us.
Rooted in Woburn
This branch operates out of Woburn, and Russell lives here, in the Pinehurst neighborhood near the Horn Pond reservation. His kids went through the Woburn Public Schools. He’s swept chimneys on Lake Avenue, on Main Street, in the new builds near Commerce Way and the 1920s colonials off Montvale Avenue. He knows which blocks lose power first in a ice storm and which basements flood in spring. The Hearthstone name refers to the stone the whole home gathered around, and that’s how we try to operate here, as part of the gathering, not a company passing through.
Written by Russell Haines, Owner at Hearthstone Chimney Co., serving Woburn since 2014.