How Hearthstone Chimney Co. Was Born in Easton
It was late fall in 2014, and we’d just finished watching a homeowner in the College Hill neighborhood sign a $4,200 invoice for chimney work that didn’t need to happen. The company before us had sold them a full liner replacement based on a flashlight peek and a lot of urgency. We ran our camera. The liner had surface rust, nothing more. Another decade of safe use with annual sweeps.
That was the afternoon we knew Easton needed something different. Not another truck with a magnetic sign and a commission quota. Not another outfit that treated a chimney like an ATM. We’d been working the trade long enough to know what proper work looked like, and we’d seen enough of the other kind. So we made a straightforward promise to ourselves: every customer gets the camera, every customer gets the truth in plain English, and nobody pays for fear.
We brought Hearthstone Chimney Co. to Easton because this market deserved a branch run by people who’d actually hold the tools, not just manage the invoices. Twelve years later, that promise still defines every job we take.
Russell Haines’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Russell didn’t stumble into this work. He was drawn to it by the peculiar satisfaction of fixing something hidden, something most people forget exists until it fails them.
His first real day on a chimney job was in his early twenties, working alongside a tradesman who trained him in the Lehigh Valley winter. The air smelled of cold mortar and old soot. His hands went numb gripping a rotary whip in a flue that hadn’t been touched in fifteen years. When the brush finally broke through the glazed creosote and the draft pulled clean for the first time in years, the homeowner lit a fire that evening and sent a photo of the flames. That was the hook. Not the technical challenge, though that mattered. It was the immediate, visible relief of a stranger who could now use their home the way it was meant to be used.
What gets Russell out of bed is the same thing that got him out of bed twelve years ago: a homeowner who’s been told they need work they can’t verify, who doesn’t know who to trust, who’s waiting for someone to show up and actually look. If he weren’t doing this, he’d probably be restoring old houses somewhere, working with his hands on things that outlast him. The work means something because the hearth means something. It’s the stone the whole home gathered around. Keeping that safe and functional is not abstract. It’s specific, it’s physical, and it’s done right or it’s not done.
Meet Russell Haines - The Person Behind Every Job
Russell Haines is Owner & Founder of Hearthstone Chimney Co. in Easton. He’s spent over a decade in the chimney trade, trained under seasoned journeymen in the Lehigh Valley, and holds the certifications his state requires for this work. He doesn’t send a crew he barely knows into your house. He’s on the roof, he’s in the flue, he’s the one reviewing your camera footage with you afterward.
What separates Russell from a corporate franchise technician is simple: he’s not building a route to sell. He’s building a business his neighbors recognize. He lives here. He’ll see you at the grocery store. That changes how you treat people.
On weekends, you’ll find him working on his own old house in the Easton area, or fishing the Bushkill when the trout are running. He believes in doing a thing properly the first time because he’s been on the other end of shortcuts, and he knows how they unravel.
His commitment to you is direct: if Russell Haines signs off on your chimney, he stands behind it. No paperwork games, no arguing. That’s the Keystone Standard.
Our Promise to Easton Homeowners
Our values aren’t decoration. We call them K.E.Y.S., and we use them to settle real questions on real jobs.
Krafted right means trained journeymen, proper materials, no shortcuts. We use quality components from suppliers like Famco and DuraFlex because we’ve seen what the cheap stuff looks like after three winters.
Every time means the 400th job gets the care of the first. We don’t speed up because we’re busy. We don’t skip steps because nobody’s watching.
Your home first means we work in your house the way we’d work in our mother’s. Drop cloths, shoe covers, vacuuming the hearth before we leave. The small stuff is the whole point.
Standing behind it means if it’s not right, we come back. No paperwork, no arguing. The Keystone Standard: 90 days, in writing.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed - Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license their state requires for chimney work.
- Insured & bonded - Coverage that protects your property while we’re on it.
- Years of local experience - Russell Haines and our Easton team have been serving the Lehigh Valley since 2014.
- Strong local reputation - Built one job at a time, one neighbor to another.
These credentials matter because chimney work happens inside your home, on your roof, and in the structure that keeps your family warm. A homeowner can’t verify technical skill at the door. They can verify that the person standing there has met the standards their profession demands, carries the coverage to make things right if something goes wrong, and has a track record in the same community where they live. That’s what we offer.
Rooted in Easton
We’ve swept chimneys in the historic homes of College Hill, the newer builds of Forks Township, the stone houses up toward Bath, and the working neighborhoods around Wilson and Williams. We know what the Lehigh Valley’s freeze-thaw cycles do to mortar. We’ve seen how the wind hits a chimney on Fountain Hill differently than in Eastlawn Gardens. This isn’t a territory on a map for us. It’s where we work, where we live, and where we plan to be in thirty years. That’s why we answer the phone with a person, train local apprentices into journeymen, and show up when we say.
Written by Russell Haines, Owner at Hearthstone Chimney Co., serving Easton since 2014.