Meet the Team - Level Two Chimney Astoria

Meet the Astoria Team Behind Level Two Chimney Astoria

Chimney work in Astoria comes with its own set of rules. We’re talking prewar brick, shared party walls on 30th Avenue, and rooflines that haven’t been touched since the original coal chute was sealed. The crew at Level Two Chimney Astoria has worked this neighborhood long enough to know what’s behind the drywall before we open it. Most of the team lives within 20 minutes of Ditmars. We have four people who show up on your job, and you’ll know their names before they arrive.

Our People

Marcus T., Lead Technician, NFPA 211 Level 2 Certified

Marcus joined us eight years ago after spending five years working on mid-rise flue systems across Queens. He’s the one holding the camera at your firebox, narrating what he sees in terms you can actually use. His specialty is creosote classification: he’ll tell you if what’s in your flue is Class I glaze that a good sweep handles evenly, or Class III glazed buildup that has moved into chimney-fire territory. He keeps a spiral notebook in the van with sketches of the more questionable liner installs he’s found. Some of those pages go back to a 2014 job on 23rd Avenue where the previous owner had sleeved an unlined flue with a length of gutter pipe. He has a dry take on most things, and he doesn’t recommend work he wouldn’t pay for himself.

Elena R., Senior Installer, Certified Pellet, Wood & Gas Specialist

Elena is the person who handles liner installation, cap work, and the rebuilding projects that require actual scaffolding on a shared roofline. She’s been with us for six years and before that ran residential HVAC ductwork, so she thinks about airflow the way a plumber thinks about pitch. She’s our lead on DuraFlex and HeatShield installs and is the one who walks every customer through the crown repair video before quoting anything. She once relined a flue for a rowhouse on Newtown Road where the original terra-cotta tiles had shifted so badly the camera couldn’t complete the scan until after the teardown. Her phrase is “measure once, photograph before, cut twice” which is technically backwards, but everyone on the team knows what she means. She lives in Woodside and brings pastries from a bakery on Broadway whenever we’re on a job longer than one day.

Danny K., Service Coordinator

Danny is the person who picks up the phone, and yes, it’s a live person every time. He’s been coordinating service routes for residential trades since 2011 and joined us three years ago. His job is to make sure you get a written scope and a written price before anyone touches a brush, and that the named tech on your confirmation is the person who walks in the door. He schedules camera-scan inspections with enough time to go through the footage on site, which is a Clause 4 requirement. Danny is from Astoria, went to school on Steinway Street, and if you’re on hold for more than 30 seconds it’s because he’s listening to a customer describe the whirring noise in their chimney in generous detail. He’ll take the time.

Jose F., Apprentice

Jose is two years into his appliance and venting certification and works alongside Marcus on inspection calls. He runs the vacuum setup, tags tools, and has started handling the documentation process so customers leave with organized photo files and a clean record. He grew up in East Elmhurst and spent a summer before joining us working on brownstone gutters, which means he’s comfortable on a ladder and doesn’t lean back to check his phone while on a roof. His detail is that he can identify the church bells in the neighborhood by sound which doesn’t help on the job, but it keeps him company on early mornings when the van is unloading on a narrow street.

One Standard, Every Job

Everything the Astoria team does falls under the Haven Standard, which is what sets any Level Two location apart from the independent trucks working Queens. Clause 1 means a written price, written scope, and written warranty delivered before work starts. Not a ballpark, not a text estimate, not “we’ll see when we’re up there.” Clause 4 means a documented photo record on every visit, which is why your camera-scan inspection images are shown to you on site and then archived. The 365-Day Done Right Promise applies to every tech on this page, and if something we installed or repaired doesn’t hold, we come back and make it right. That’s not a slogan on the side of a van. It’s stamped on the invoice you’ll get from Corrine’s team.

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