Meet the Team - Level Two Chimney Ellicott City

Meet the Ellicott City Team Behind Level Two Chimney Ellicott City

We’re a local crew of four who work exclusively in Ellicott City and the surrounding Howard County neighborhoods: Dorsey’s Search, Centennial, Font Hill, and Dunloggin. Most of us have been here long enough to know which 1970s split-levels have original terra cotta flues and which Colonials near the Patapsco got stainless liners added in the 1990s. What unites us is simple: we write the price before we touch the chimney, we photograph what we find, and we answer the phone when you call. Corrine Halstead has run this team since 2009, and every one of us carries the same habit: name the finding, show the evidence, state the cost. In that order.

Our People

Marcus T., Lead Technician

Marcus has swept and inspected chimneys in Ellicott City for 19 years, the last 11 of them with our crew. He holds a CSIA certification and has run more than 9,000 camera inspections, mostly Level 2 per NFPA 211. His specialty is reading the inside of a flue the way a mechanic reads an engine: he can tell you from one freeze-thaw cycle whether a terra cotta liner cracked from heat or from water. Marcus keeps a photo archive of every job he runs, numbered and dated, going back to 2014. He is also the reason our trucks always carry a spare chimney cap in three sizes, because he once lost an hour on a Dorsey’s Search roof over a missing cap and decided never again. When he’s not on a roof, Marcus restores old radios, a hobby his wife tolerates only because the workbench is in the garage.

Dana R., Senior Installer

Dana leads our liner and rebuild work. She’s been installing DuraFlex and HeatShield systems for 14 years and has completed more than 600 stainless liner replacements across Howard County alone. Her background is masonry before liners, so when a crown is spalling (that’s when the concrete top layer flakes and crumbles from water absorption), Dana can tell you whether it’s a re-point job or a full recast, and she’ll show you the photos to prove it. She is the one who insists on a cricket, that small peaked diverter behind a wide chimney, on any rebuild where water would otherwise pool against the chase. Dana lives in Elkridge and keeps a five-gallon bucket of crown coat samples in her truck, labeled by neighborhood so she can match existing work on older Ellicott City homes. Her two kids think every chimney is a castle tower, which Dana says is “pretty close to accurate.”

Priya S., Service Coordinator

Priya is the voice on the phone, and she has been answering our lines since 2018. She schedules every visit, confirms the written scope before a tech is assigned, and makes sure you get a text when your technician is on the way with a name attached. Priya knows the Ellicott City burn season as well as any of us: she starts flagging bookings for late September in mid-August, and she will tell you straight if a sweep can safely wait until spring based on what you describe. Her background is in logistics, not chimneys, but she’s taken our in-house training on creosote classification and can explain Class I versus Class III over the phone in plain terms. Just don’t ask her to get on a roof; she is, by her own admission, “afraid of heights and not curious about changing that.”

James W., Apprentice

James is in his second year with us, learning the trade the way Corrine insists everyone learns: camera runs, cap checks, crown inspections, and a lot of hand-scrubbing before anyone hands him a liner kit. He came to us from a roofing crew in Catonsville, so his roof safety habits were already solid, but he’ll tell you the first time Marcus sent him up with a chimney brush he dropped the rod section in the yard three times. He’s now the one who photographs every smoke chamber before and after, and he’s working toward his own inspection certification. James is the youngest member of the crew and the one most likely to explain a chimney fire risk with a movie reference. His February jinx, which he shares without prompting, is that every cracked crown he’s found has been on a Tuesday in the rain.

One Standard, Every Job

The Haven Standard is not a plaque in the office. It’s the thing that keeps a 3:00 PM sweep from becoming a 5:30 PM “while we’re in there” surprise. Clause 1 means you get a written price, a written scope, and a written warranty before anyone touches a brush to your flue. Clause 4 means every visit ends with a documented photo record: before, after, and anything we found in between. That applies whether it’s a basic sweep in Font Hill or a full rebuild off Montgomery Road. We don’t split the standard by neighborhood or by invoice size. Marcus, Dana, Priya, and James all work under the same expectation Corrine set in 2009: if it’s not done right, we make it right, and you can hold us to that for a full 365 days after the job. The buying network behind us sources DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia, Famco, and Copperfield materials so our prices stay honest, but the standard on the roof is ours. It always has been.

Written by Corrine Halstead, Owner at Level Two Chimney Ellicott City, serving Ellicott City and Howard County since 2009.