How Level Two Chimney Tacoma Was Born in Tacoma
It was late October, the kind of damp Tacoma afternoon where the sky hangs low and every fireplace on the block starts getting lit for the first time since spring. We were still working out of another shop then, running calls across the South Sound, and we got sent to a 1923 Craftsman in the North End near Point Defiance. The homeowner, a retired teacher, had already had two companies out. Both said the same thing: full liner replacement, six to eight thousand, book now before burning season. She was shaking when she opened the door. Not from cold. From the feeling that nobody was telling her the truth.
We ran the camera. Forty minutes down the flue, we found what the others had missed: a cracked crown letting water in, which had degraded a six-foot section of clay liner. The rest was sound. We patched the crown with HeatShield, replaced the damaged section with Olympia Chimney components, and documented everything. Her total came in under what others had quoted for “diagnostics” alone. She cried. Not from relief, though there was that. From the exhaustion of finally being shown evidence she could see for herself.
That night, driving back across the Tacoma Narrows with the fog rolling off the water, we knew this market needed something different. Not another truck with a brush and a pitch. A branch that would work to the standard the name demands: Level 2, every time, with the footage to prove it. We opened Level Two Chimney Tacoma the following spring, 2009, and we have not run a Level 1 inspection as a standalone service since.
Corrine Halstead’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Corrine did not grow up in this trade. She came to it sideways, through a rental house on Tacoma’s Hilltop that had a chimney fire in January of 2006. The sound still lives in her memory: not the dramatic whoosh people imagine, but a low, persistent roaring, like wind trapped in a tunnel, and the smell of hot creosote that clung to the walls for weeks. The company that came to “inspect” afterward spent eleven minutes on the roof, handed her a handwritten note saying “liner compromised,” and quoted forty-two hundred dollars for work they would not explain. She paid, because what choice did she have? She could not see inside her own chimney.
Two years later, she was training under a tradesman who had spent thirty years in the Tacoma fire service before picking up a brush. He taught her to read a flue the way a physician reads an X-ray: the white streaks of third-degree creosote, the hairline fractures that only show when you rotate the camera head, the telltale glazing that means someone has been burning unseasoned fir from the Peninsula. The work smelled like soot and metal and the particular sharpness of masonry dust. Her hands cracked every winter. She did not mind.
What pulled her in was not the fire, paradoxically. It was the peace of afterward. Running a clean flue, knowing the family behind that wall could sleep through a January storm without the low roar. She has been at this for over seventeen years now, and what gets her out of bed is still the same: a homeowner in Midland or Milton or Lakewood who has been told something frightening and expensive, and who needs someone to show them the truth with a camera and a plain explanation. If she were not doing this, she would probably be restoring old houses, something with her hands that leaves a visible record of care. This is not so different.
Meet Corrine Halstead - The Person Behind Every Job
Corrine Halstead, Owner & Founder, Level Two Chimney Tacoma
Corrine holds state licensure and carries the insurance and bonding required for residential chimney work in Washington. Her training spans NFPA 211 certification, factory training on Gelco and Famco venting systems, and the internal Haven Standard protocol that governs every inspection this branch runs. She is not a corporate franchise technician rotated through from another market. She lives in Pierce County, keeps her tools in a shop near the Port of Tacoma, and knows which neighborhoods built before 1940 have the offset flues that make camera work tricky.
What separates Corrine from a dispatched technician is simple: she owns the outcome. When a job goes wrong, and occasionally they do, she is the one who returns. When a homeowner in Gig Harbor or Puyallup calls with a question six months later, she pulls the archived footage and walks them through it again. Her personal commitment is direct: every chimney we touch leaves a documented record, and every customer knows exactly what we found, what we did, and what it cost before we pack our tools.
Before
AfterOur Promise to Tacoma Homeowners
We operate under the Haven Standard, and we cite it by clause because these are not marketing words. They are the contract we keep.
Clause 1: Have it in writing. Every sweep, every repair, every liner evaluation arrives with a flat price and a written scope before work begins. We learned this from the teacher on North End. She deserved to know what she was paying for and why. So do you.
Clause 4: Evidence on every job. The camera scan is not an upsell. It is the inspection. We archive the footage because a liner that looks sound in October can show stress by March, and we would rather prove what we saw than ask you to trust our memory.
No surprises. We do not do “while we are in here” add-ons. If we find something beyond the agreed scope, we stop, show you the footage, and quote the additional work in writing. You decide. The door does not close until you agree.
Our Credentials
Every professional working under the Level Two Chimney Tacoma name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires. We maintain current state licensure, carry insurance and bonding appropriate for residential chimney work, and have built our reputation across Pierce and South King counties through documented work and customer records rather than advertising claims.
Our branch draws on the systems and buying power of Level Two Chimney Co., the regional sweep business founded in 2009 and acquired by Haven for its pioneering camera-scan archive. That heritage means we can source quality components like HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, and Famco at prices that keep our estimates honest, and it means every job is backed by a standard that predates this location.
Why this matters to you: a chimney technician works inside your home, on your roof, with fire safety and carbon monoxide exposure at stake. State licensure means minimum competency has been verified. Insurance and bonding mean you are protected if something goes wrong. The Haven Standard means you do not have to take our word for any of it - you will have the photos, the readings, and the written record.
Our hours are Monday through Sunday, 7:30 AM to 8:00 PM. Calls are answered by a live coordinator who connects you with our local team.
Rooted in Tacoma
This branch lives where it works. Corrine’s trucks roll through the steep streets of the North End, the post-war ramblers of Midland, the newer construction in South Hill where homeowners are often surprised to learn their “gas only” fireplace still needs inspection. We have swept chimneys in view of Commencement Bay and in the quiet neighborhoods near Wapato Park where the trees drop enough debris to clog a cap in a single season. We know that Tacoma’s marine climate means more moisture in the flue, more freeze-thaw damage to crowns, more calls from Des Moines and Normandy Park after the first real storm. We are not visiting. We are here.
Written by Corrine Halstead, Owner at Level Two Chimney Tacoma, serving Tacoma and surrounding communities since 2009.