Meet the Team - Alcott Chimney Queens

Meet the Queens Team Behind Alcott Chimney Queens

We’ve been cleaning chimneys in Queens since 2002, and in that time we’ve learned something that surprises a lot of people: this borough has more working fireplaces than almost anywhere else in New York City. From the prewar Tudors of Forest Hills to the attached brick row houses of Woodside and the converted lofts of Long Island City, Queens was built for wood heat and gas heat, and those systems still need real maintenance. The crew we send to your door is made up of people who live here, park here, and know what a Queens flue actually looks like inside. Every one of them passes a background check and identity verification before they ever ring your bell, and you’ll know their name and see their photo before we arrive.

Our People

Ray T., Lead Technician

Ray has been running chimney sweeps and inspections across Queens for eleven years. He’s our lead on complex flue work and the guy who handles most of the DuraFlex liner installations we do in the borough. Ray holds a CSIA certification and has spent enough time inside older Queens chimneys to know that the ones in Jackson Heights and Elmhurst tend to run narrower than the ones in the single-family homes out toward Bayside. He’s the technician most customers ask for by name on repeat visits, mostly because he explains what he’s doing without making you feel like you should already know the difference between a smoke chamber and a flue tile. Outside of work, Ray restores old radios, so he has strong opinions about vintage electronics and zero patience for a fireplace damper that’s been painted shut.

Marie D., Senior Installer

Marie joined the Alcott team six years ago after a decade in residential contracting, and she runs most of our gas fireplace repair and install work in Queens. She’s the person we trust with HeatShield resurfacing jobs and the finicky gas log sets that need exact clearances and clean burner assemblies. Marie is factory-trained on Olympia Chimney and Copperfield products, and she’s the first one to point out when a gas fireplace has been installed with parts from a big-box store that were never meant to work together. She grew up in a converted row house in Ridgewood, so she understands how tight Queens basements can be and how much it matters to keep a gas unit venting cleanly. When she’s not on a rooftop, she’s running half-marathons in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Denise P., Service Coordinator

Denise is the voice on the phone most evenings, and the reason you’ll never leave a voicemail when something smells like smoke at 11 p.m. She’s been coordinating chimney work in Queens since 2008 and can tell you within a few minutes whether what you’re describing needs a sweep, an inspection, or a call to your gas utility. Denise handles the name-and-photo preview we send before every visit, and she builds the daily schedule around Queens traffic patterns so you’re not stuck waiting through the Van Wyck at rush hour. She keeps a handwritten list of every customer’s preferred contact method, which is both charming and, as she puts it, “more reliable than any app.” Denise is the reason our written quotes actually get to customers before the work starts.

Anthony S., Apprentice

Anthony is in his second year with Alcott and came to us through a trade apprenticeship program based in Jamaica, Queens. He assists on sweeps and inspections and is working toward his own CSIA certification under Ray’s supervision. Anthony is the guy on the roof with the inspection camera, feeding you a live look at your flue liner on a tablet so you can see exactly what we see. He’s young, careful, and a little too enthusiastic about chimneys, but that’s the kind of energy you want from someone learning the trade properly. On weekends he plays pickup basketball at Astoria Park and has strong opinions about the best pupusa spots in Corona.

One Standard, Every Job

Every one of these people works under the same rules, and those rules don’t change depending on which Queens neighborhood you’re in. Every technician is background-checked and identity-verified before they ever step on a customer’s property. That’s the Threshold Standard, not an optional upgrade, and it applies to the apprentice and the lead alike. Every job gets a written price before any work begins, and every repair gets a written guarantee. If a repair fails, the second visit is free. We use the same professional trade materials on every job, always specified by name: DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, Famco, and Copperfield. No improvised substitutes, no box-store workarounds. Ruben Castellano, owner of Alcott Chimney Queens, holds every technician to that line, because a chimney in a Forest Hills co-op deserves the same care as one in a single-family house in Howard Beach.

Written by Ruben Castellano, Owner at Alcott Chimney Queens, serving Queens since 2002.