Meet the Team - Emberly Chimney Cleaners Collegeville

Meet the Collegeville Team Behind Emberly Chimney Cleaners Collegeville

We’re the crew that shows up in Collegeville with a camera, a brush, and a written price already in your hand. Every one of us has been background-checked, uniformed, and trained to the Haven Standard before we ever pull into a driveway in Perkiomen Township or along Main Street. What ties us together isn’t a slogan. It’s the habit of documenting what we find, naming what it costs, and letting the photos speak before we do.

Our People

Corrine Halstead, Owner

I’ve been climbing roofs in Montgomery County since 2009, and I’ve stopped being surprised by what chimneys hide. I started Emberly Chimney Cleaners after watching too many homeowners in Collegeville get a verbal “ballpark” that somehow tripled once the truck was in the driveway. That’s why Clause 1 of the Haven Standard exists: a written price, a written scope, and a written warranty before anyone touches a tool. I still run camera inspections myself when the flue liner looks questionable, and I keep a file of the strangest things we’ve found behind dampers - a family of raccoons in Skippack, a 1960s bowling scorecard wedged in a smoke chamber in Trappe. The work is serious. The people don’t have to be.

Marcus T., Lead Technician

Marcus has been sweeping chimneys for fourteen years, and he can tell a Class II creosote buildup from Class III by the sound of the brush hitting the flue wall. He’s NFPA 211 certified for Level 2 inspections and handles our trickier jobs in the older homes near Ursinus College, where unlined masonry flues from the 1920s are still common. Marcus is the one who trains our apprentices on ladder safety and proper harnessing on steep pitches. Off the clock, he restores vintage motorcycles in a garage outside Royersford and brings the same patience to a seized spark arrestor that he brings to a stuck exhaust valve.

Dana K., Senior Installer

Dana specializes in chimney liner installations and full rebuilds, the kind of work that sends most crews scrambling for subcontractors. She’s certified in HeatShield cerfractory flue sealant application and DuraFlex stainless steel liner systems, and she’s rebuilt crowns and poured concrete caps from Collegeville to Phoenixville in every season except the one where the mortar won’t cure. Dana keeps a weather eye on the forecast because she’s the one who has to explain to a homeowner why we’re postponing a crown pour when the temperature drops below forty. She has a dog named Sparky, which she insists was not her idea.

Raj P., Service Coordinator

Raj answers the phones that ring at midnight with smoke backing up into a living room, and he’s the one who texts you when Marcus or Dana is fifteen minutes out from your house in Lower Providence. He’s been with us since 2017 and knows which neighborhoods in Collegeville have the narrow driveways that won’t fit our larger rig, which ones need the ladder rack instead. Raj schedules every appointment with a buffer for the camera inspection and photo documentation that Clause 4 requires, because he’s the one who fields the call if something gets missed. He plays competitive chess online and claims it’s excellent practice for coordinating four technicians across eighteen service towns.

Elena V., Apprentice Technician

Elena joined us in 2023 after finishing her HVAC certification at Montgomery County Community College and deciding she preferred working outdoors. She’s completed her NFPA 211 Level 1 training and is working toward Level 2 under Marcus’s supervision, which means she’s already running her own camera inspections on straightforward cleanings and learning to spot spalling brick, deteriorated mortar joints, and the early signs of a cracked flue liner. Elena grew up in a farmhouse near Schwenksville with a wood stove that her family never once had professionally inspected, a fact she now mentions to nearly every customer she meets. She’s usually the one who notices the roof cricket is improperly flashed before anyone else does.

One Standard, Every Job

The Haven Standard wasn’t designed in a boardroom. It was built from what we learned across 38,000 chimney inspections and cleanings, starting right here in Collegeville. Every technician on this page operates under the same clauses: written price before work starts (Clause 1), verified and uniformed crews who text when they’re en route (Clause 2), live phone support around the clock (Clause 3), and a documented photo record on every single visit (Clause 4). The 365-Day Done Right Promise backs every job we complete in Collegeville, Trappe, Skippack, and the seventeen other towns we serve. Whether you’re calling about a routine sweep before burning season or a full liner replacement in a hundred-year-old masonry chimney, the same standard applies. The materials come from the same suppliers - DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, Famco, Copperfield - procured through Haven’s buying network so the price we write down is honest and the warranty we stamp on it is real.

We’re not a franchise. We’re independently owned and operated, and every person on this page lives within twenty minutes of the jobs they run. That’s not a marketing point. It’s how you get someone to your door in Collegeville who knows that the clay flue liners in the 1980s subdivisions near Graterford tend to crack at the thimble, and who has the photo file to prove it.

Written by Corrine Halstead, Owner at Emberly Chimney Cleaners Collegeville, serving Collegeville since 2009.