Meet the Team - Level Two Chimney Manhattan

Meet the Manhattan Team Behind Level Two Chimney Manhattan

Manhattan chimneys are their own animal. We work in prewar brownstones with flues that haven’t seen daylight since the Truman administration, converted lofts where the fireplace was walled over three renovations ago, and penthouse units where the chase runs fourteen stories before it reaches the cap. The crew we’ve built here knows those buildings because they’ve worked in them. Every person on this page answers to Corrine Halstead, owner of Level Two Chimney Manhattan, and every one of them follows the same rules on every visit: written price first, camera evidence always, and a photo record before we pack up. No exceptions, no matter the address.

Call (862) 319-8047

Our People

Miguel S., Lead Chimney Technician

Miguel has been sweeping and inspecting chimneys in Manhattan for 17 years, the last six of them with Level Two. He holds an NFPA 211 Level 2 inspection certification and has run over 9,000 camera scans on flues across the five boroughs, most of them with a building super watching over his shoulder asking why the liner looks the way it does. Miguel is the one who finds the cracked clay tile in the third-floor run that two other companies missed, because he actually runs the camera the full length instead of checking the first six feet and calling it done. Outside of work he restores old motorcycles in a shared garage in Queens, which explains why he treats a Stihl rotary brush the way most people treat a classic car.

Dana R., Senior Installer & Repair Specialist

Dana handles flue liner replacements, chimney rebuilds, and crown repairs for our Manhattan clients, and she’s been doing masonry and liner work for 11 years. She’s certified on DuraFlex and HeatShield systems and has rebuilt more spalling brick crowns on the Upper West Side than she can keep track of without checking her own job log. Dry humor, steady hands, and a habit of photographing the before-state of every repair so the customer sees exactly what she saw before she touched a single brick. When she’s not on a roof line, Dana is teaching her two kids how to throw a curveball in Riverside Park.

Paul V., Service Coordinator

Paul is the voice on the phone when you call (862) 319-8047. He’s been coordinating chimney service schedules in Manhattan for eight years and knows how buildings work here: which co-op boards need insurance certificates emailed before the ladder goes up, which supers require 48 hours notice, and which walkups mean our techs are carrying equipment up five flights because the freight elevator hasn’t worked since 2011. Paul builds every schedule so the crew actually has time to do the job right, not hit three appointments in the same hour. He’s also a part-time banjo player, which is either a bonus or a warning, depending on your taste in music.

Elena K., Apprentice Technician

Elena is two years into her chimney career and works alongside Miguel on cleaning and inspection calls. She passed her NFPA 211 training coursework on the first attempt and handles the cleaning equipment, drop cloths, and HEPA vacuum setup before Miguel starts the inspection camera. Elena keeps the photo log organized during every job, tagging each image by flue section so the customer’s record is actually readable when we hand it over. She grew up in a prewar building in Harlem where the fireplace was decorative, which is what got her curious about chimneys in the first place: she wanted to know why nobody could use it. Now she’s the one explaining it to our customers.

One Standard, Every Job

What ties this crew together isn’t just the work, it’s the paperwork trail they leave behind. Every Level Two Chimney Manhattan job gets a written price and a written scope before anyone picks up a brush. That’s Clause 1 of the Haven Standard, and it’s not a suggestion. Every job gets a camera scan and a documented photo record before the crew leaves, Clause 4, running continuously since 2009. If a competitor has given you a written estimate, bring it. We’ll give you a free second opinion on it, and we’ll tell you plainly if the work is needed now or can safely wait. The team on this page has inspected and cleaned over 38,000 chimneys collectively along the network, and every single one came with the same 365-Day Done Right Promise: if it’s not done right, we make it right. That’s the whole point of having one standard. Manhattan has thousands of chimneys and exactly one way we work on them.

Written by Corrine Halstead, Owner at Level Two Chimney Manhattan, serving Manhattan since 2009.