How Level Two Chimney Olympia Was Born in Olympia
We remember the exact afternoon in late 2009 when the decision settled in. Corrine Halstead had spent the morning watching a homeowner in Olympia’s Eastside neighborhood stand at her kitchen counter, turning over an invoice from another sweep company. The woman had been charged for a “complete inspection” that lasted eleven minutes. No camera. No photos. A handwritten note saying “recommend liner replacement” with a four-figure estimate attached. She called us for a second opinion because someone at the hardware store mentioned our name.
Corrine ran a Level 2 inspection with a camera. The flue was sound. Some creosote buildup, nothing unusual for a home that old in Olympia’s damp winters. The homeowner cried. Not from relief, from anger at what she’d almost paid for.
That evening, Corrine called the tradesman who’d trained her and said: “I’m bringing Level Two to Olympia. For real. Camera, archive, written price first. No exceptions.” The national brand already existed. What didn’t exist here was a branch that would actually operate by its own standard. We opened our books in Olympia that winter. Seventeen years later, we still answer every call with the same rule: no work starts without a flat price in writing, and no inspection ends without evidence the homeowner can see.
Corrine Halstead’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Corrine didn’t plan on chimneys. She planned on buildings, on understanding how things hold together when weather tries to pull them apart. Olympia’s rain teaches you that. Water finds the gap. Heat finds the weakness. A structure that looks solid from the street can be failing where nobody looks.
The first time she descended a flue with a camera, everything changed. It was a Craftsman bungalow near Priest Point Park, owned by a retired teacher who’d burned wood for thirty winters and never seen inside her own chimney. The image came up on the monitor: glazed creosote, a hairline crack in the terracotta, a bird’s nest wedged above the smoke shelf. The homeowner watched over Corrine’s shoulder. “That’s inside my house?” she whispered. “That’s been there the whole time?”
The smell of creosote when you first brush it loose, the particular grit that collects under your fingernails, the way an Olympia winter morning looks through a clean flue from the roofline - these became Corrine’s vocabulary. She learned to read chimneys the way some people read tree rings. That crack pattern means freeze-thaw damage from the ’96 storm. That staining pattern means the cap’s been gone since before the current owner moved in. That orange glaze means someone burned unseasoned fir for two seasons straight.
What gets her out of bed is the same thing that kept her up late learning this trade: the gap between what a homeowner knows and what they need to know. Most people in Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater - they bought their house, they light fires, they assume the chimney works because smoke goes up. Corrine’s work is closing that gap with evidence they can hold in their hand.
If she weren’t doing this, she’d probably be restoring old windows or tracking water damage in historic buildings. Something that requires patience and a good light source. Something where the real problem hides behind what everyone assumes is fine.
Meet Corrine Halstead - The Person Behind Every Job
Corrine Halstead is Owner and Founder of Level Two Chimney Olympia. She holds state licensure as a chimney professional and carries full insurance and bonding for residential work throughout Thurston County and the surrounding service area.
Corrine trained under a veteran sweep who taught her to document everything - “the camera is your memory, and your memory is your shield” - and she brought that discipline to every job she’s run since. She knows the local building codes that affect chimney work in Olympia’s older neighborhoods, the permit requirements for liner replacement in unincorporated Thurston County, and the specific venting challenges posed by the tight, efficient homes built around the Capitol Campus in the last decade.
What separates Corrine from a corporate technician is simple: she’s the one who answers when something goes wrong. Not a dispatcher. Not a regional manager. Her cell number goes on every invoice. She lives in the community she serves, shops at the same grocery stores, deals with the same wet winters that test every flue in this city.
On weekends, you’ll find her restoring a 1928 wooden sailboat in a shed near Budd Inlet - a project that’s taught her more about patience and proper sealing than any certification course. That same patience goes into your chimney. She will not recommend work she cannot explain, and she will not explain work she cannot show you.
Her commitment to every homeowner is direct: “I put my name on this company because I stand behind what we find and what we fix. If I wouldn’t tell my neighbor to do it, I won’t tell you.”
Before
AfterOur Promise to Olympia Homeowners
Honest pricing, no exceptions. Clause 1 of the Haven Standard means your written estimate arrives before any work starts. Not a ballpark. Not a “typical range.” The actual flat price for your actual chimney, based on what we found in your actual flue. Corrine still remembers the Eastside homeowner with the fraudulent liner quote. That memory is our policy.
Quality parts, documented. When we specify a DuraFlex stainless liner or HeatShield cerfractory resurfacing, you receive the product name, the manufacturer’s warranty terms, and photos of the installation. No generic “premium liner” language. What goes in your chimney has a name and a paper trail.
We stand behind every job. Not because we print it on a card, but because Corrine’s name is on the company, and she lives here. A faulty repair in Olympia doesn’t disappear into a corporate accounting department. It comes back to a person who shops at Ralph’s Thriftway and walks her dog at Watershed Park. That’s the enforcement mechanism.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed chimney professional operating in Washington State
- Insured & bonded for residential chimney work throughout our service area
- Local experience serving Olympia-area homeowners since this branch opened
- Strong local reputation built through documented inspections and transparent recommendations
Every professional working under the Level Two Chimney Olympia name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires, and to perform every inspection to the Level 2 standard that defines our brand. That means a camera in every flue, photos in every report, and a written record archived for your reference.
These credentials matter because a chimney technician works inside your home’s most critical safety system. An unlicensed sweep can miss a cracked flue liner that vents carbon monoxide into your bedroom wall. An uninsured contractor who falls from your roof leaves you liable. An inspector who won’t show you photos is asking for trust they haven’t earned. We don’t ask for trust. We bring evidence.
Rooted in Olympia
Our trucks roll through the same streets our customers drive daily. We’ve inspected chimneys in the historic homes near the Capitol Campus, the mid-century ramblers of Tanglewilde, the new construction pushing toward Lacey, the waterfront places along Budd Inlet where salt air eats metal caps faster than anywhere inland. We know which neighborhoods lost trees in the 2021 ice storm and which ones are still burning the fir they bucked themselves.
Corrine’s kids attended school with kids whose parents we’ve worked for. We’ve run cameras in flues on the same block where we buy coffee. The Haven Standard travels with us, but the knowledge is local: how Olympia’s rain patterns affect creosote accumulation, which way the wind hits the Capitol neighborhood in January, why a home near the Deschutes River needs a different cap than one on the bluff. We’re not visiting. We’re home.
Written by Corrine Halstead, Owner at Level Two Chimney Olympia, serving Olympia since 2009.