Level 1 sweep and inspection to the NFPA 211 annual standard - flue, crown, cap, and flashing checked and photographed
Chimney sweep logs do not sweep chimneys. They loosen some creosote - which then falls where a brush and vacuum still have to collect it.
Before
After
Before
After
Before
AfterMeet the Wakefield Team Behind Level Two Chimney Wakefield
We’re the crew that shows up at your door in Wakefield with a uniform, a license number, and a camera. Every one of us was background-checked before we ever touched a flue liner, and every one of us has sat through the same training on the Haven Standard. What unites us isn’t a handbook. It’s that we’ve all been the technician who had to show a homeowner a cracked smoke chamber and explain why it mattered. We don’t sell. We document, we explain, and we let the photo do the talking.
Our People
Corrine Halstead, Owner
I’ve been running Level Two Chimney since 2009, and I’ve personally reviewed the photo record from all 38,000-plus chimneys we’ve put through inspection. Started this after watching too many homeowners in Wakefield get quoted for work they couldn’t see evidence for. I still take calls at odd hours, not because I have to, but because I’d rather hear about a smoking fireplace direct from the source than read about it in a complaint three days later. My desk has a rotary phone and a stack of printed Clause 4 photo logs. The phone’s for show. The logs are how I spot-check that we’re still doing what we say.
Marcus T., Lead Technician
Marcus has been crawling flues for fourteen years, the last six with us in Wakefield. He’s NFPA 211 Level 2 certified and specializes in masonry evaluation, which means he’s the one who gets called when a crown is spalling or a smoke chamber needs parging. He carries a moisture meter in his left breast pocket and uses it without announcing it, just notes the reading and moves on. Off the clock, he restores vintage motorcycles in a garage in Melrose. Says the patience for aligning a 1974 exhaust manifold is the same patience for lining up a DuraFlex liner through a three-story chase.
Jen K., Senior Installer
Jen handles our liner installations and full rebuilds, the jobs where we’re pulling apart a wall or dropping a stainless steel flue liner down a condemned chimney in one of Wakefield’s older Colonials. She’s HeatShield factory-trained and has a particular knack for explaining to homeowners why their clay flue tiles from 1923 aren’t coming back into service. She keeps a notebook of every chimney she’s lined, with the address and the diameter, going back to 2017. The notebook lives in her truck. She says it’s faster than the app, and she’s not wrong.
Dave R., Service Coordinator
Dave answers the phones and schedules the runs, which means he’s the live voice you get at 10 PM on a Sunday when you smell something wrong coming from the fireplace. He’s been with us four years, previously dispatching for an HVAC outfit in Lynn. He knows every tech’s strengths, every traffic pattern from Wakefield to Reading to Stoneham, and which houses have the narrow driveway that won’t fit the full rig. He bowls in a league at Colonial Lanes. His average is 187, and he’ll tell you if you ask, but he won’t bring it up.
Alex P., Apprentice
Alex joined us in 2023 after finishing the chimney technology program at a vocational school in eastern Massachusetts. They’re still building hours toward their own Level 2 certification, so they shadow Marcus on inspections and assist Jen on liner pulls. Alex asks more questions than any apprentice we’ve had, usually the exact question the homeowner was thinking but didn’t want to sound stupid asking. They live in an apartment near Wakefield Center with a cat that has no opinion about chimneys. Alex is working on that.
One Standard, Every Job
The Haven Standard isn’t a slogan we put on the vans. It’s a set of clauses we operate under, and every technician on this page has been trained to the same version of it. Clause 1 means the written price, scope, and warranty hit your inbox before anyone picks up a tool. Clause 4 means Marcus or Jen or Alex is documenting with photos and camera footage, not as an upsell, but as standard practice since 2009. The 365-Day Done Right Promise applies whether Corrine dispatched the job or Dave squeezed you in on a Saturday. We’re independently owned and operated here in Wakefield, but we’re held to the same standard as every crew in the network, because the standard is what makes the work verifiable. You don’t have to trust our opinion. You just have to look at the photo.
Written by Corrine Halstead, Owner at Level Two Chimney Wakefield, serving Wakefield since 2009.