How Kindling Chimney Alpharetta Was Born in Alpharetta
Kindling Chimney Sweep had already built its name on a simple idea: a safe fire starts with a clean chimney. The Cedarwell family behind the brand had spent a long time proving that promise in other markets. But Alpharetta was different, and we knew it the moment we started looking at homes here in 2003. So many houses in this city have beautiful masonry fireplaces that get used hard through the winter months, and too many of them had never been properly inspected. We kept meeting homeowners who had been handed a scare story instead of a straight answer. One woman across town showed us a quote from another company demanding a full liner replacement without a single photo of the inside of her flue. She was told it was urgent. She was told it would be thousands of dollars. When we put a camera up there, the liner was fine. It just needed a sweep. That moment told us Alpharetta deserved better. We brought the Kindling name here with one commitment: show the homeowner what we see, explain what actually matters, and never recommend work that can safely wait.
Danny Cortes’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Danny Cortes came into this trade the way a lot of people come into work they end up loving: through a door he didn’t expect to walk through. He spent his early working years in the trades, learning how houses are put together and how they fall apart, and somewhere along the way he found himself on a roof in the middle of a cold January, watching soot drift up out of a chimney cap like smoke from a dying fire. The homeowner had no idea how much creosote had built up. Danny did. And that gap between what a homeowner can see and what’s actually happening inside the flue is what stuck with him.
The work itself got under his skin in a good way. He’ll tell you there’s something satisfying about the moment a brush breaks through a season of buildup and the flue finally breathes. It smells like cold ash and old oak and the inside of a fireplace that hasn’t been honest with its owners in years. And then you shine a light up there and show them what it looks like now. That’s the part that matters. Not the soot. The picture. The proof. The ability to hand a homeowner a camera image and say, this is your chimney, and here’s exactly what it needs. He didn’t grow up dreaming about chimneys. But he found a trade where being careful, being honest, and showing your work is the entire job. If he weren’t doing this, he’d still be in the trades somewhere, probably still telling people the truth about what their house actually needs. This just happens to be where the truth is easiest to prove. A decade of doing this work in and around Alpharetta has only sharpened that. He knows which fireplace styles in Milton tend to collect creosote fastest, which flues in Roswell were built with materials that age poorly, and how the damp Georgia summers affect masonry in Johns Creek. That’s lived knowledge, not a training manual.
Meet Danny Cortes – The Person Behind Every Job
Danny Cortes is the Owner and Founder of Kindling Chimney Alpharetta. He leads a local team that works to the Cedarwell Care Promise: shoe covers and drop cloths inside the house, quiet tools when kids are asleep, pet-safe products where there is a choice, a photo of the clean-up before we leave, and a written price before any work starts. He’s the person who sets the pace for how we treat a home, and the standard is simple: leave it like you found it, cleaner if possible. Two decades of local chimney work have taught him that a fireplace is rarely just a fireplace. It’s where kids hang stockings and dogs curl up on the hearth. He treats it that way. His commitment to the customer is direct: he will not recommend a repair he can’t show you proof of, and he will not rush a family into a decision about their home. Call (762) 225-2593 and you’ll get a straight conversation with someone who treats your chimney like it belongs to their own family.
Our Promise to Alpharetta Homeowners
The Cedarwell Care Promise wasn’t written in a boardroom. It’s a set of habits that come from watching what families actually care about when a tradesperson walks through the door. We live by the C.A.R.E. code on every single visit:
- Clean up like it is our own home. Drop cloths go down before the first tool comes out. Shoe covers go on before we step off the truck. Soot doesn’t travel through your living room.
- Ask before we move or touch anything. That includes mantel decor, furniture, and the dog bed in the corner. Your house, your rules, always.
- Respect the family’s time and quiet hours. We arrive during the window we set, and if the kids are napping, we work around it. Loud work doesn’t start before a family is ready for it.
- Explain the price before the work. Every job gets a written estimate before any tool touches the chimney. No surprise invoices. No “while we’re here” upselling that wasn’t in the plan.
These aren’t slogans. They’re the four things we actually do, on every job, whether it’s a routine sweep in Dunwoody or a full inspection in Norcross. When you call (762) 225-2593, ask about the Promise. We’ll tell you exactly how it shows up on the day of your appointment.
Our Credentials
Every pro working under the Kindling Chimney Alpharetta name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires. We carry the coverage a homeowner should expect from anyone stepping onto their roof or into their attic. That means state-licensed, insured and bonded, with the paperwork available if you want to see it.
Our team has spent more than a decade working on North Fulton and South Forsyth chimneys, from Alpharetta to Cumming and everywhere between. We know what a Georgia summer does to brick and what a cold snap does to a flue liner, because we’ve seen it firsthand. Our local reputation is built on the simple practice of showing homeowners the camera footage and letting them decide. We’re also part of the larger Kindling Chimney Sweep network, which means the standards behind our work come from a national family of brands that holds every location to the same care promise. You get a local team that answers to local customers, backed by a name that has to live up to itself everywhere it operates.
Why it matters: a chimney technician who shows up without insurance is a risk to your home. A technician who can’t show you a license hasn’t earned the right to work on your flue. And a company that won’t stand behind its clean-up promise is one you’ll regret hiring. We make all of that easy to verify before you book.
Rooted in Alpharetta
We work where we live. Danny drives through downtown Alpharetta on the way to jobs in Crabapple and Windward, and half the houses we sweep are within ten minutes of Avalon or the Big Creek Greenway. When the Alpharetta Farmer’s Market runs on Saturday mornings, we’re not tabling there as a marketing stunt. We’re just people who live here and like tomatoes. Alpharetta is home, and the families we serve are our neighbors. That changes how we work. It changes what we’re willing to put our name on. Every job we do here is a job we’ll drive past next week, and we do the work like that matters. Because it does.
Written by Danny Cortes, Owner at Kindling Chimney Alpharetta, serving Alpharetta and the surrounding North Fulton communities since 2003.