Meet the Team - Kindling Chimney Alpharetta

Meet the Alpharetta Team Behind Kindling Chimney Alpharetta

You’ll see the same faces at your door year after year. That matters when someone’s walking through your living room with tools and a flashlight. Our Alpharetta crew is small on purpose: four technicians who’ve swept, inspected, and repaired fireplaces across Milton, Roswell, Crabapple, and Johns Creek long enough to know which neighborhoods have the older flue tiles and which newer builds have prefab boxes that get mistaken for full masonry. They’re background-checked, uniformed, and they answer to Danny Cortes directly, not a call center. Most weeks, they’re the ones picking up the phone.

Our People

Marcus T., Lead Technician

Marcus has been sweeping and inspecting chimneys for twelve years, the last four with Kindling Chimney Alpharetta. He’s our go-to for level 2 camera inspections and is the person who’ll walk you through the footage frame by frame so you can see exactly what he sees. Marcus holds a CSIA certification and has a running mental catalog of Alpharetta’s older chimneys, especially the 1980s builds near Wills Park where clay tile spalling shows up on the regular. He keeps a small notebook in the truck with notes on recurring issues by street. Outside work, he restores vintage hand tools and has opinions about local barbecue that he’ll share if you ask.

Priya S., Senior Installer

Priya leads our liner and fireplace repair work, and she’s been installing professional-grade materials like DuraFlex and HeatShield for close to a decade. She came to us from a general contracting background, so she’s precise about clearances, flashing, and the structural details most people never see. Priya is the one who’ll explain why a stainless liner needs proper insulation and what that means for your specific setup, no jargon, no upselling. She’s unflappable on complicated jobs and has a soft spot for older Atlanta-area homes with unusual fireplace designs. When she’s not on a roof, she’s coaching her daughter’s soccer team in Cumming.

Devon R., Service Coordinator

Devon is the calm voice on the phone at seven in the morning and eleven at night. He’s usually the person who books your sweep, answers questions about what to expect, and sends your written price before anyone steps foot in your home. Before joining Kindling, Devon worked dispatch for a local HVAC company, so he understands how to triage urgent calls without drama. He’s lived in Alpharetta for nearly twenty years and can tell you which neighborhoods have HOA rules that affect chimney caps and exterior work. When he’s not coordinating routes, he’s coaching, or running sound at his church on Windward Parkway.

Ben C., Apprentice

Ben started on a roof when he was nineteen and spent five years in exterior contracting before deciding he wanted to learn the fireplace trade from the inside out. He’s been with Kindling for two years, working alongside Marcus and Priya on sweeps and inspections. Ben’s current focus is mastering level 1 inspections and understanding how airflow changes from one fireplace design to the next. He brings a quiet, deliberate pace to every job and usually handles the care setup: shoe covers, drop cloths, and making sure nothing gets moved without asking. Off the clock, he’s often hiking the trails around Lake Lanier or working on his old Nissan, learning mechanics the same way he’s learning chimneys.

One Standard, Every Job

Every crew member at Kindling Chimney Alpharetta follows the same C.A.R.E. values on every visit: Courtesy, Accountability, Respect, and Excellence. That’s not a poster in the shop. It’s shoe covers and drop cloths down before tools come out, nothing moved without asking, a written price in your hand before any work begins, and a photo of the clean-up taken before the crew pulls away, every single time. If something isn’t right, the 365-Day Done Right Promise means we come back and make it right. No fine print. No runaround. Our Alpharetta team is independently owned and operated as part of the Cedarwell family of companies, and we answer to our neighbors, not to a corporate office in another state. When you call Kindling Chimney Alpharetta, you’re calling a small local crew that works under that standard, with Danny Cortes at the helm, and holds itself to it on every sweep, inspection, and fireplace repair.

Written by Danny Cortes, Owner at Kindling Chimney Alpharetta, serving Alpharetta since 2003.