How Hearthstone Chimney Co. Was Born in Lynchburg
Back in 2014, we were working out of Roanoke when a call came in from a couple in Lynchburg’s Diamond Hill neighborhood. Their chimney had been “inspected” by two different companies, both of whom quoted them north of four thousand dollars for a full liner replacement. Something didn’t sit right. We drove over with a camera, ran it up the flue, and found the real problem: a cracked crown letting water in, which had rusted a single section of connector pipe. The fix cost a fraction of what they’d been told. That drive back down Route 460, we kept thinking about how many homeowners in Lynchburg were getting that same story - scare tactics, inflated quotes, work recommended without proof you could see for yourself. Right then, we decided Hearthstone needed a branch here. Not a satellite, not a territory on a map. A real team, trained to our standards, with Russell Haines at the head of it. We opened our Lynchburg branch that fall with one promise: every inspection ends with photos you can see, and no work gets recommended without evidence you can hold in your hand.
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 keeps him here twelve years later: the moment when a homeowner finally understands what’s actually going on inside their house.
He started as an apprentice in 2002, working under a tradesman who trained old-school - no power tools for the first six months, just hand brushes and the feel of flue tiles under your fingertips. Russell learned to read a chimney by touch before he learned to read it on a screen. The work was filthy. Soot gets into everything - under your nails, in the creases of your neck, ground so deep into your work boots that no amount of washing ever quite gets it out. The first time he climbed a steep roof in January, his hands went numb holding the chimney cap while he tried to set screws. He almost quit that day.
But then came the jobs that mattered. A family in Timberlake whose toddler had been coughing all winter - turned out their furnace flue was partially blocked, backing carbon monoxide into the nursery. A retired couple in Forest living on fixed income, told they needed a complete rebuild, when all they really needed was HeatShield resurfacing on the smoke chamber and some pointed-up mortar joints. Russell started carrying a Polaroid camera on jobs, then a digital, then the video inspection rigs we use now. He couldn’t stand the idea of a homeowner taking his word for something they couldn’t see.
What gets him out of bed now isn’t the sweep itself. It’s the call back six months later, or six years, when someone remembers that he showed them the crack, explained their options, and didn’t push for the most expensive fix. If he weren’t doing this, he’d probably be working with his hands some other way - restoring old houses, maybe, or furniture. Something where you can stand back at the end of the day and point to what you fixed. The smell of wood smoke on a cold morning still does something to him. It means somebody’s warm. Somebody’s safe. That’s the whole point.
Meet Russell Haines - The Person Behind Every Job
Russell Haines is the Owner and Founder of our Lynchburg branch. He’s a state-licensed chimney professional with level-2 inspection certification and hands-on training in masonry repair, stainless steel relining with DuraFlex systems, and crown rebuilding. Before leading our local team, he spent over a decade in the trade - not in an office, but on roofs, in attics, and inside flues - learning what fails, why it fails, and how to fix it so it stays fixed.
What separates Russell from a franchise technician sent from a dispatch hub is simple: he’s the one who answers for the work. He still carries a worn leather notebook where he sketches chimney diagrams for homeowners who want to understand their own system. On weekends, you’ll find him on the trails at Peaks of Otter or working on a 1986 F-150 that he’s been restoring, badly, for seven years. His personal commitment to every customer is direct: if he wouldn’t recommend it to his own mother, he won’t recommend it to you.
Our Promise to Lynchburg Homeowners
We operate on four principles we call our K.E.Y.S. code - not because it looks good on a truck, but because we use it to settle real disagreements about real jobs.
Krafted right means trained journeymen, proper materials, no shortcuts. We use Copperfield and Famco components where they fit the application, not whatever’s cheapest in the warehouse. A job in Madison Heights last winter: another company had used the wrong mortar mix on a firebox rebuild, and it was already spalling after eighteen months. We stripped it and did it again, on our own dime, because Krafted right doesn’t mean “looks fine from the street.”
Every time means the four hundredth inspection gets the same care as the first. We don’t rush the camera work because it’s the last job of a Friday.
Your home first means we lay down runners, we ask about your dog, we explain before we sell. Russell still tells the story of a homeowner in Hollins who stopped him mid-pitch to say, “I just need to know if my house is going to burn down.” That’s the only question that matters until it’s answered.
Standing behind it is our Keystone Standard guarantee: 90 days, in writing, no arguing. If it’s not right, we come back. No paperwork battle, no transfer to a warranty department three states away.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed chimney professionals, meeting Virginia’s requirements for trade practice and consumer protection
- Insured & bonded coverage in place for every job performed in your home
- Years of local experience serving Lynchburg-area homeowners since our branch opened in 2014
- Strong local reputation built through repeat customers, neighbor referrals, and documented inspection reports
These aren’t resume padding. A homeowner in Bedford or Vinton is letting a stranger onto their roof, into their attic, sometimes into their bedroom if that’s where the chase runs. State licensing means someone’s verified we know the codes. Insurance and bonding means if something goes wrong, you’re not chasing us for damages. Local experience means we know which neighborhoods have clay flue tiles from the seventies, which ones have the unlined brick chimneys, which hillside lots in Lexington settle hard enough to crack crowns. And reputation - real reputation, not a star rating - means you can ask around. Someone you know has probably called us.
Rooted in Lynchburg
Our shop sits just off Timberlake Road, and our trucks cover the same routes Russell has driven for twelve years - out to Stuarts Draft for farmhouses with stone chimneys nobody’s touched since the Reagan administration, down to Farmville for the historic district homes with flues too narrow for modern inserts, up to Buena Vista where the mountain winds test every crown seal we’ve ever installed. We’ve swept flues in Cave Spring, relined systems in Madison Heights, and explained to more than one Lynchburg homeowner why their ventless logs still need the flue inspected. The name Hearthstone isn’t decoration. The hearthstone was the stone the whole home gathered around. That’s still the job: keeping the center safe, keeping it honest, keeping it warm.
Written by Russell Haines, Owner at Hearthstone Chimney Co., serving Lynchburg since 2014.