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 Pasadena Team Behind Level Two Chimney Pasadena
Our crew lives in the same zip codes we sweep. That means we drive home past the chimneys we serviced that morning, and we answer to neighbors at the grocery store on Saturday. What holds this team together isn’t a handbook. It’s the Haven Standard, Clause 1 through 5, applied the same way on a routine cleaning in Bungalow Heaven as on a full rebuild in the San Rafael hills. Every person here is background-checked, uniformed, and named on the dispatch text you’ll receive when we’re on our way.
Our People
Corrine Halstead, Owner
Corrine founded Level Two Chimney Pasadena in 2009 after six years as a lead technician for a regional outfit that wouldn’t quote in writing. She built this company on the opposite premise: every customer gets the price, the scope, and the warranty on paper before anyone touches a tool. Corrine still runs NFPA 211 Level 2 camera inspections personally on complex jobs, and she’s the one who reviews every photo record before it goes to the homeowner. She lives in the Chapman Woods area with two dogs who have learned to sleep through the sound of her marking up chimney diagrams at the kitchen table.
Marcus T., Lead Technician
Marcus has been climbing Pasadena roofs for eleven years, starting as a helper on Spanish Colonial restorations in the Madison Heights neighborhood where he grew up. He’s certified in HeatShield cerfractory flue repair and handles most of our smoke chamber parging jobs, the ones where the throat above the firebox has eroded and needs refractory mortar rebuilt by hand. Marcus carries a printed license card and shows it unprompted. His detail: he keeps a weathered notebook of every chimney cap dimension he’s fabricated for historic homes, because no two turret-style flues in this city match.
Elena R., Senior Installer
Elena specializes in stainless steel flue liner pulls and chimney rebuilds, the jobs where we’re dropping a DuraFlex or Olympia Chimney liner down a masonry flue that hasn’t been opened since the 1950s. She came to us from commercial HVAC rigging, which shows in her rigging math and her patience with tight clearances. Elena is the one who trains apprentices on proper creosote classification, teaching them to distinguish Class II glazed buildup from Class III tar-like deposits that require chemical treatment before mechanical removal. On weekends she restores vintage motorcycles, a hobby that has made her unusually good at extracting broken fasteners from cast iron dampers.
David K., Service Coordinator
David answers the phones that ring at 10 PM on a Sunday and schedules the appointments that fill our calendar through burning season. He’s the person who confirms your written price before the job is booked, not after, and who sends the text when your technician is en route with a name and photo attached. David worked hotel front desks in Old Town for eight years before switching to trades scheduling, and he still treats every call like a guest arriving after a long drive. His desk has a wall map of Pasadena with pins for every repeat customer, color-coded by the year we first swept their chimney.
Jin P., Apprentice Technician
Jin is in his second year with us, rotating through every phase of the trade before he specializes. Right now he’s mastering crown integrity assessment, learning to read the hairline cracks in concrete crowns that let water into the flue system during Pasadena’s brief but intense winter rains. He arrived with a photography background, which made him a natural for the photo documentation that Clause 4 of the Haven Standard requires on every visit. Jin lives in Altadena and bikes to jobs when the route allows, which means he’s often the first to notice when a chimney cap has gone missing on a street he passed the week before.
One Standard, Every Job
The Haven Standard was built from what this team learned across 38,000 chimney inspections and cleanings. Clause 1 requires a written price before work starts, delivered by David or shown on Corrine’s tablet on site. Clause 2 is the 365-Day Done Right Promise, backed by materials from DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, Famco, and Copperfield that we source through Haven’s buying network. Clause 3 means background-checked, uniformed technicians with license numbers visible. Clause 4 is the documented photo record that Jin helps produce and Corrine reviews. Clause 5 is the Free Second Opinion on any competitor’s written estimate.
These clauses don’t change whether we’re sweeping a single flue in a 1920s bungalow or rebuilding a chimney in the hills above Linda Vista. The same Marcus who parges a smoke chamber in the Arroyo Seco applies the same HeatShield spec he’d use anywhere in the network. The same Elena who pulls a liner in Pasadena uses the same DuraFlex sizing charts she would in any other Haven Standard shop. What makes it local is that we know which neighborhoods have clay flues from the 1940s building boom, which ones have unlined brick from the 1890s, and which streets see the wind-driven rain that destroys crowns faster than anywhere else in the city.
When you call (213) 459-6058, you reach David or another live person, 24 hours a day. No voicemail. No web form. We’ll quote your sweep or inspection in writing before we book it, and we’ll send a named technician with a text when they’re on the way. That’s the Haven Standard. That’s this crew.
Written by Corrine Halstead, Owner at Level Two Chimney Pasadena, serving Pasadena since 2009.