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 Huntington Beach Team Behind Emberly Chimney Cleaners Huntington Beach
We’re the crew that shows up at your door in Huntington Beach with a vacuum, a camera, and a printed price sheet already in hand. Corrine Halstead built this team around one idea: the person sweeping your flue should be able to name every part they touch, explain what they’re seeing, and leave you with photos that prove it. No one here works on commission. We don’t upsell liners to hit a quota. We fix chimneys, document everything, and go home.
Our People
Corrine Halstead, Owner
Corrine started sweeping chimneys in 2009 after watching a homeowner in Fountain Valley get talked into a $4,200 “emergency” liner replacement that wasn’t needed. She’d been working as a fireplace shop apprentice, learning the trade from a former Navy boiler tech who drilled into her that every flue tells a story if you bother to look. She founded Emberly Chimney Cleaners that same year, named it after the NFPA 211 Level 2 inspection, the kind with a camera that actually shows you what’s happening inside your chimney. Corrine still answers the phone herself some mornings, still carries a spare chimney brush in her truck, and still thinks the best tool in this trade is a homeowner who understands what they’re paying for. She lives in Huntington Beach with two rescue dogs who have zero respect for her work schedule.
Marcus T., Lead Technician
Marcus has been running chimney calls across Orange County for fourteen years, and he’s the tech Corrine assigns when a job smells complicated from the first phone description. He’s CSIA-certified and specializes in masonry rebuilds, particularly the kind of spalling brick and deteriorated mortar you see in Huntington Beach’s older tract homes near the oil fields, where sulfate in the soil accelerates chimney decay. Marcus keeps a weathered notebook of every unusual flue configuration he’s encountered, which came in handy last March when he recognized a 1960s Majestic prefab that had been illegally vented into an unlined chase in the Huntington Harbour area. Off the job, he restores vintage motorcycles and is perpetually one project away from having garage space for his truck.
Diana R., Senior Installer
Diana handles the jobs that require scaffolding, roof work, and a tolerance for August heat on asphalt shingles. She’s certified in HeatShield cerfractory flue sealant application and DuraFlex liner installation, and she’s installed more stainless steel liners in Huntington Beach salt-air environments than anyone else on the crew. The coastal humidity here corrodes metal faster than inland, so Diana specifies 316Ti alloy liners for homes within two miles of the beach, not the standard 304. She grew up in Westminster, started in construction with her uncle’s roofing company, and still carries a scar on her left forearm from a cricket flashing job in 2019 that she’ll show you if you ask. She won’t, though, unless you ask.
Javier L., Service Coordinator
Javier is the voice you hear when you call (657) 427-5872 at 10 PM on a Sunday because you smelled something odd from your fireplace. He’s been with Emberly Chimney Cleaners since 2017, and his job is to translate whatever a homeowner is worried about into a dispatch note that tells the tech what to expect. He schedules every appointment with a written price range already prepared, pulls permit history from the City of Huntington Beach when a rebuild might be involved, and texts customers when their tech is en route. Javier lives in Costa Mesa, coaches a U-14 soccer team, and has developed an uncanny ability to calm down panicked callers by describing exactly what a chimney fire sounds like (a freight train, usually) and then confirming whether that’s what they’re actually hearing.
Aisha K., Apprentice Technician
Aisha joined us in 2023 after completing the chimney technology program at a trade school in San Bernardino, and she’s currently working toward her CSIA certification while handling sweeps and basic inspections under Marcus’s supervision. She’s already developed a specialty in diagnosing draft problems in Huntington Beach’s newer tight-construction homes, where negative pressure from range hoods and HVAC systems can pull smoke back down a flue that tests fine on its own. Corrine assigned her to develop our protocol for combustion spillage testing with a digital manometer, a step we now include on every inspection in homes built after 2010. Aisha grew up in Anaheim, still drives her high school Honda Civic, and has a running bet with Diana about who’ll spot the most bird nests in chimney caps this spring.
One Standard, Every Job
Every person on this crew works under the Haven Standard, the set of practices Corrine established in 2009 and has refined across every job since. Clause 1 requires a written price, written scope, and written warranty before any work begins, not after a tech is already in your living room. Clause 4 requires a documented photo record on every visit, archived and available to you, not buried in a proprietary app. The 365-Day Done Right Promise applies to every technician’s work equally. When you call Emberly Chimney Cleaners Huntington Beach, you’re not getting whoever was available that day from a pool of subcontractors. You’re getting Marcus, Diana, Javier, or Aisha, people Corrine hired directly, background-checked personally, and trained to explain your chimney in terms you can verify yourself. The materials come from the same suppliers, DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, Famco, and Copperfield, procured through Haven’s network to keep pricing honest. The standard doesn’t change because the zip code does.
Written by Corrine Halstead, Owner at Emberly Chimney Cleaners Huntington Beach, serving Huntington Beach since 2009.