Meet the Team - Hadley Chimney West Covina

Meet the West Covina Team Behind Hadley Chimney West Covina

We’re a small crew, and that’s on purpose. Every Hadley Chimney technician who rolls into your West Covina driveway has worked chimneys across the San Gabriel Valley long enough to know that no two flues act the same. Some are tile-lined originals from the 1960s. Some got a stainless retrofit in the 90s. Some haven’t seen a brush since the house changed hands twice. What unites us is simple: we show you what we find, in photos, before we ask you to spend a dollar. Cory Mitchell started this company in 2003, and the people below are the reason he can stand behind a 365-Day Done Right Promise without losing sleep.

Our People

Cory Mitchell, Owner

Cory founded Hadley Chimney Sweep in 2003, which means he’s pulled creosote out of more West Covina flues than most people have seen chimneys, period. He still runs calls himself a few days a week because that’s how you keep standards honest. His specialty is diagnosing liner failures, the kind where a homeowner has been told by someone else they need a full rebuild and Cory finds a HeatShield repair that gets them another decade for a third of the cost. He’s the one who insists on the Relay Visibility Guarantee: live arrival tracking, before-and-after photos, and a written price before work starts, on every job. If you call and ask for him by name, you’ll get him. No gatekeepers.

Manny R., Lead Technician

Manny has twelve years in chimney service and is our go-to for gas fireplace repair in West Covina homes. He holds certifications across most major gas log and insert brands we service and can usually diagnose a pilot assembly issue before his coffee gets cold. He’s got a dry sense of humor, the kind that surfaces when he pulls a bird’s nest out of a flue and says “they didn’t pay rent, either.” Not big on small talk, very big on checking cap screens, flashing, and crown mortar even when the call was just for a sweep. If the tech at your door is built like a former carpenter and works like the clock is running, that’s Manny.

Dana K., Senior Installer

Dana leads our liner and rebuild work, which is the part of the job where precision matters most. She’s factory trained on DuraFlex flexible liner systems and handles most of our HeatShield ceramic repairs. Ten years in, she can tell by sound alone whether a tile liner is cracked or just dirty. She lives in Covina, knows the neighborhood-specific quirks, like how older split-levels off Citrus often have offset flues that make a straight liner install tricky. Her approach is to lay out the repair in plain terms with photos before she starts: here’s the crack, here’s what we’re doing, here’s what it costs. Callers who are nervous about being upsold tend to relax once they hear Dana’s on the job.

Vanessa T., Service Coordinator

If you call Hadley Chimney West Covina, there’s an honest chance Vanessa is the voice on the other end. She’s the human who answers 24/7, the person who knows our schedule, and the one who makes sure you get a tracked arrival window instead of a four-hour guess. Before joining us, she did dispatch for a plumbing company, so she’s heard every scheduling horror story and built her whole process around not repeating them. She’s also the reason you’ll get actual photos of your chimney work, not just a number on an invoice. Her one rule: if it’s not written down, it didn’t happen. That’s why our quotes are written and our guarantees are too.

Leo S., Apprentice

Leo’s fresh into chimney work, two years in, and apprenticing under Manny and Dana. Before this, he framed houses in Chino, so he’s comfortable on ladders and not afraid of crawlspaces, which is more important to this job than people realize. He’s learning flue sizing, cap installation, and how to read creosote stages, and he’s on every job with a senior tech. What he lacks in years he makes up for in checking his work twice. If you see the young guy with the thorough checklist asking Manny questions at the door, that’s Leo, and he’s going to sweep your chimney like his name is on the invoice.

One Standard, Every Job

Here’s what the five of us actually mean when we say “done right.” Every visit starts with the Relay Visibility Guarantee: live arrival tracking, a written price before work begins, and before-and-after photo documentation. Every repair comes with a written guarantee and a 365-Day Done Right Promise, which includes a free second visit if the repair fails, not an upsell. We don’t stock cheap parts to cover margins. We work with DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, Famco, and Copperfield because those manufacturers stand behind their products and so do we. West Covina homeowners should never have to take a chimney company at its word. The photos, the written quote, the written guarantee, that’s the word. And it applies whether you’re getting a $200 sweep or a $4,000 liner replacement. The person walking out to your truck should get the same standard as the one doing the install. At Hadley Chimney West Covina, that’s how we’ve run since 2003, and none of us are interested in changing it now.

Written by Cory Mitchell, Owner at Hadley Chimney West Covina, serving West Covina and the San Gabriel Valley since 2003.