Hearthstone Chimney Co. · Millhaven & the brick districts · Est. 1981

A chimney is a machine for holding fire in the place you decided to put it. Ours is the upkeep of that decision.
Dana Whitcombe, master sweep — second generation, forty-one seasons

Services & rates

The card

The same card every household gets, in writing, before we climb anything. NFPA 211 asks for a Level 1 inspection once a year no matter how little you burn — creosote does not care about your schedule, and neither does a spark.

Level 1 sweep & inspection$189

NFPA 211 annual: full brush, smoke test, 21-point written report

Level 2 camera inspection$349

Video scan of every foot of flue — required at property sale, fuel change or after any chimney fire

Stainless reline$2,400–3,600

6-inch rigid 316Ti liner, insulated wrap, termination and draw test included

Tuckpoint & brick repairfrom $28 / sq ft

Joints ground out and re-pointed in matched mortar; spalled brick cut out and replaced

Crown rebuildfrom $680

Broken crown chipped off to sound masonry and poured new, with a proper drip edge

Caps & chase coversfrom $210 installed

Stainless mesh cap fitted and screwed down — never wired on

What we do

The three trades inside the trade

The sweep

The sweep

First-degree creosote — flaky, soot-heavy — brushes out in an hour behind a sealed hearth and a HEPA vacuum. Second degree has hardened into plates and gets the rotary head; third degree, the glazed tar that chimney fires are made of, gets chemical treatment and a follow-up camera pass. The report grades what we found, degree by degree, foot by foot.

The reline

A cracked clay tile flue cannot be swept safe — it can only be relined. We pull the old tiles where the joints allow, drop a rigid 316Ti stainless liner one section at a time, wrap it in insulation so the flue gases stay hot and draft clean, and draw-test the finished assembly before the stove is lit again.

The reline
The masonry

The masonry

Millhaven brick is a hundred years old and knows it: joints gone to sand, crowns cracked through, the odd spalled face shedding freeze-thaw every spring. We grind out to sound mortar, re-point in a mix matched to the original lime content, and rebuild crowns that shed water instead of drinking it.

The brick districts, 2025 — 2026

Recent chimneys

Six jobs from the last year, photographed from the roof and the firebox. Sweeps, relines and re-pointing — no two chimneys in the district are the same age or the same trouble.

Ferry Street row
Ferry Street row — re-pointed in matched lime mortar
Millhaven general hospital annex
Millhaven general hospital annex — crown rebuild, January
The Old Bakery lofts
The Old Bakery lofts — 316Ti reline, two flues
Kiln District semi
Kiln District semi — Level 1 sweep, glazed third degree found
Whitcombe family house
Whitcombe family house — reline and new termination
Foundry Row
Foundry Row — caps fitted, screwed, warranted

The districts say

Kept burning, kept standing

The camera found a third-degree glaze a previous outfit had brushed over and called clean. Hearthstone treated it, re-swept, and showed me the footage both times — the difference was not an opinion, it was a wall. That flue would have burned the street down eventually.
F. Aldana · Glazed creosote, Kiln District
Level 2 scan at the sale of our 1911 four-square found two cracked tiles and a crown that was mostly optimism. The reline quote was itemized to the fitting, the crew laid runners the whole way to the roof, and the woodstove draws better than it has in thirty years.
The Prentices · Level 2 and reline, Ferry Street
They re-pointed our chimney to match 1900s lime mortar — the mason next door came out to watch, which is the review. Snow used to sit in the joints all winter; now it slides off the crown like it was paid to.
R. Castile · Tuckpoint and crown, the Old Bakery

The autumn sweep calendar fills by mid-September — book before the first fire. (555) 012-5541 · sweeps@hearthstonechimney.example

Put the chimney on the calendar

Tell us what you burn and when the flue was last looked at — cordwood count matters more than years. Level 1 sweep and inspection is $189, camera scans are $349, and the report is written either way. sweeps@hearthstonechimney.example