Meet the Team - Kindling Chimney Fort Worth

Meet the Fort Worth Team Behind Kindling Chimney Fort Worth

We’re a small, tight crew. That’s on purpose. Chimney work means showing up at somebody’s house, walking through their living room, and being trusted around their kids, their pets, and the furniture their grandmother left them. That trust isn’t built by a rotating roster of strangers. It’s built by the same faces showing up year after year, knowing the houses on their route, and treating a sweep in Wedgwood with the same care as one in Ryan Place. Danny Cortes built the Fort Worth team around that idea: hire people he’d want in his own home, then give them a reason to stay.

Call (682) 382-9934

Our People

Marcus T. – Lead Technician

Marcus has been sweeping chimneys in Tarrant County for over eleven years, and he’s seen just about every configuration a Fort Worth roofline can throw at him. He’s certified through the Chimney Safety Institute of America and handles our most involved jobs: full relines, smoke chamber parging, and the occasional historic fireplace restoration. His specialty is diagnosing draft problems that other companies have already “fixed” twice. He’ll start at the firebox, work up to the crown, and tell you plainly whether the issue is a damper, a flue offset, or just a house that’s too tightly sealed for its fireplace. When the crew finishes a job, Marcus walks the clean-up check himself: shoes, drop cloths, every tool accounted for. He’s particular about that. On weekends he restores a 1972 Ford pickup, which his wife tolerates mostly because it keeps him out of the house.

Elena R. – Senior Installer

Elena leads fireplace repair and liner installation for the Fort Worth team. She holds her NFI Gas Specialist certification and has installed more DuraFlex and HeatShield systems than she cares to count. If your gas fireplace won’t stay lit, or your old clay liner is spalling and needs a stainless replacement, Elena is the person who’ll crawl in with a camera, show you the footage, and walk you through exactly what she saw and what it means. She’s direct without being pushy. She’ll tell you when a repair can wait a season and when it genuinely can’t. Before she starts any job, she drops a clean drop cloth, checks her work area twice, and makes sure the path from the front door to the fireplace is clear. She has a dog named Biscuit who is not allowed on the couch, which Biscuit views as a negotiation rather than a rule.

James W. – Service Coordinator

James is the voice on the phone most mornings, and he’s the reason your appointment time actually holds. He’s been with the Cedarwell family of companies since 2019 and came to Kindling Chimney Fort Worth after two years juggling dispatch for a plumbing outfit on the north side. He knows the Fort Worth map the way most people know their grocery store: he can tell you that a job in Ridglea Hills will take twenty minutes longer in school-zone traffic, or that a Benbrook afternoon opens up if the crew finishes early in Cityview. James handles the written price before work starts, so what he quotes you is what you pay. He also flags every note about pets, narrow driveways, or kids who nap in the afternoon. Nothing about your house surprises the crew, because James already told them. He’s a father of two, a dedicated barbacoa loyalist, and the reason our schedule doesn’t fall apart by Thursday.

Alex D. – Apprentice Technician

Alex is our newest member, two years into the trade and already running his own basic sweeps with a senior tech shadowing on the more complicated roofs. He’s working through CSIA certification coursework alongside Marcus, which means when he’s on your roof, he’s not alone up there in terms of training and supervision. He handles the prep work: shoe covers at the door, drop cloths down before the first tool comes off the truck, and quiet tools when the kids are asleep. Alex grew up in a house with a wood-burning fireplace that never got cleaned properly, and he’ll tell you the first time he saw what creosote does to a flue, the whole trade clicked for him. He wants to be a lead tech in five years, and he’s putting in the hours to earn it. He’s also the only person on the crew who can say “Saginaw” without making it sound like a question.

One Standard, Every Job

The crew in Fort Worth follows the same rules every technician in the Cedarwell family follows, regardless of city. We show up in uniform, background-checked, and on time. Shoe covers go on at the door. Drop cloths go down before anything else. Nothing moves without asking. The written price lands in your hand before work starts, not after, and there’s no on-the-spot pressure to add services you didn’t ask for. When the work is done, a photo of the clean-up is taken before the crew leaves. If something isn’t right, the 365-Day Done Right Promise means we make it right: no fine print, no runaround. Repairs use professional-grade materials from DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, Famco, and Copperfield, because a job patched with off-brand parts is a callback waiting to happen. That’s what the Cedarwell Care Promise means in practice, and it’s the standard Danny Cortes, Owner, holds the entire Fort Worth team to on every visit. If your chimney hasn’t been looked at this year, call (682) 382-9934 and you’ll get James or another live person on the line, any hour of the day, because a safe fire starts with a clean chimney.

Written by Danny Cortes, Owner at Kindling Chimney Fort Worth, serving Fort Worth and the surrounding area since 2003.