Meet the Team - Level Two Chimney Joliet

Meet the Joliet Team Behind Level Two Chimney Joliet

We’re the crew that shows up at your door in Joliet with a camera, a brush, and a written price already in your inbox. Every person on this page has passed a background check, worn the uniform, and sat through the same training Corrine Halstead put in place back when this was still a two-van operation. What unites us isn’t a slogan. It’s the Haven Standard, and the fact that none of us wants to be the technician who forgot to document the flue condition.

Call (815) 620-5234

Our People

Marcus T. - Lead Technician, NFPA 211 Level 2 Inspector

Marcus has been climbing roofs in Will County for fourteen years, and he’s inspected chimneys in Joliet’s Cathedral Area, East Side, and Rockdale enough times that he recognizes brick patterns by neighborhood. He holds a CSIA Certified Chimney Sweep credential and specializes in Level 2 camera inspections, the kind that finds the gap between flue tiles you can’t spot from the firebox. Marcus is the one who trained our last three apprentices, and he still carries a handwritten notebook from 2012 with every liner measurement he’s ever taken. Off the clock, he restores vintage motorcycles in a garage near Louis Joliet Mall and argues with his brother about whether a 1978 Honda is ever truly “finished.”

Darnell K. - Senior Installer, Liner & Rebuild Specialist

Darnell came to us from commercial HVAC in 2016 and brought a rigging background that matters more than you’d think when you’re lowering a stainless DuraFlex liner down a three-story flue in downtown Joliet. He’s certified in HeatShield cerfractory flue repair and handles our full rebuilds, from smoke chamber parging to crown pours. Darnell’s the technician who will stop mid-job to show a homeowner exactly why their clay liner is spalling, using the camera feed and a screwdriver to point out the alligatoring. He keeps a fishing rod in his truck and hits the Des Plaines River at dawn whenever we can spare him, which isn’t often enough.

Sandra L. - Service Coordinator & Customer Liaison

Sandra answers the phones that ring at 10 PM on a Saturday when someone in Shorewood smells smoke and doesn’t know if it’s an emergency. She’s been with Level Two Chimney Joliet since 2019 and has heard every variation of “my fireplace smells weird” that Joliet homeowners can produce. Sandra schedules every appointment, sends the written price before work starts per Haven Standard Clause 1, and texts customers when their technician is en route. She knows which techs are comfortable with steep-pitch roofs, which ones speak Spanish, and who to send when a historic home in the Near West Side needs extra care. She grows tomatoes in raised beds behind her Plainfield home and brings the extras to the office in August.

Elena R. - Apprentice Technician, Second-Year Trainee

Elena joined us in 2023 after leaving a career in property management, where she saw too many chimneys that failed inspection because nobody had documented anything for twenty years. She’s completing her CSIA training while working alongside Marcus on every type of job, from routine sweeps in Joliet’s Fairmont neighborhood to cap installations in Crest Hill. Elena already runs the camera better than some techs with a decade on her, and she’s the one who noticed a cracked crown on a routine sweep last March that the homeowner’s last company had missed entirely. She lives in Joliet with two rescue dogs and a cat who tolerates them.

One Standard, Every Job

The Haven Standard wasn’t designed in a boardroom. It was built job by job, starting in 2009, when Corrine Halstead decided that every customer deserved a written price before anyone touched their chimney, a photo record of what was found, and a clear warranty if something wasn’t right. That became Clause 1, Clause 4, and the 365-Day Done Right Promise.

Our Joliet crew upholds the same standard as every independently owned and operated team in the network. The materials come from the same suppliers, DuraFlex and HeatShield and the rest, bought through Haven’s procurement network so we’re not marking up retail. The documentation requirements are identical. The training is the same. What changes is the roof we’re standing on and the homeowner we’re explaining it to.

When you call (815) 620-5234, you’re not reaching a call center. You’re reaching Sandra, or someone sitting next to her, who can tell you whether Marcus or Darnell or Elena is available and what the written price will include. The technician who arrives will have their license number visible, their name on the uniform, and a camera in hand. And when the job is done, you’ll have photos, a written scope, and a warranty you can hold in your hand. That’s the Haven Standard. That’s who we are.

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