How Flint Chimney Co Alpharetta Was Born in Alpharetta
Flint Chimney Sweep had been doing things the right way since 2002, long before we brought the brand to Alpharetta. The Garrison Standard, the written pricing, the full-year guarantee: all of that was already built. What Alpharetta needed was a local team that actually lived here and knew the houses here.
Hank Delano had watched too many Alpharetta homeowners get burned by the same pattern. A crew would show up late or not at all. The price would creep up once the ladder was against the house. The work would be rushed, the mess left behind, and when something failed months later nobody answered the phone. It wasn’t that Alpharetta lacked chimney companies. It was that too many of them treated a fire safety job like a drive-by.
Bringing Flint Chimney Sweep to this market wasn’t about opening another service truck. It was about planting a team here that would be judged by the neighbors we see at the grocery store. That changes how you work. When the homeowner across the street knows where to find you, you show up inside the window you gave, you put the price in writing before anything starts, and you leave the site clean and squared away. That’s the only way a local branch of a national brand earns the right to call itself Alpharetta’s own.
Hank Delano’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Hank didn’t grow up dreaming about chimneys. He grew up in a house where the fireplace was the center of winter. The smell of oak smoke on a December evening, the sound of rain tapping the cap when the fire was out, the way the flue would draw on a cold morning before the heat kicked on. Those weren’t technical observations. They were just what home felt like.
The trade found him later, through a job that had nothing to do with fireplaces. He was working around construction and kept getting pulled onto chimney calls because he was the one who would climb up and actually look. What he found up there changed how he thought about the work. Creosote as thick as tar. Cracked flue tiles hiding behind a clean brick face. Liners that looked fine from the hearth but were falling apart ten feet up. Homeowners had no idea, because nobody had ever shown them.
What kept him in it was the honesty of the work. A chimney either ventilates or it doesn’t. The clearances either meet code or they don’t. There’s no spin. You run a camera up the flue, and the homeowner sees exactly what you see. That transparency is rare in home services, and it’s what Hank has valued for more than a decade of running a local team. The equipment has changed, the training has changed, but the feeling of handing a homeowner a camera report and saying “here’s what’s really going on” has never gotten old.
If he wasn’t doing this, he’d probably be working with his hands somewhere else. He’s the kind of person who fixes things before he replaces them, who reads the manual twice, who wants to understand how something works before he touches it. Chimney work suits that. Every house is a little different, every flue has its own story, and the fix that works on one won’t work on the next. It keeps you honest.
Meet Hank Delano – The Person Behind Every Job
Hank Delano is the Owner & Founder behind Flint Chimney Co Alpharetta. He has spent more than a decade in the chimney and venting trade, building the hands-on knowledge that only comes from being up on roofs in every season and looking down more flues than he can count.
Every pro who works under the Flint Chimney name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires, and Hank holds his crew to the same standard he holds himself: show up when you said you would, charge what you said you’d charge, and do the job like the homeowner is watching, because in Alpharetta, they usually know someone who knows you.
What separates Hank from a corporate franchise technician is simple. He’s not passing through. He lives here. He’s the one who reads the inspection camera, he’s the one who walks the roof, and he’s the one who stands behind the work a year later if something isn’t right. Ask anyone who’s worked with him: he’d rather lose a job than sell a repair the camera doesn’t show. That’s not marketing. That’s just him.
Our Promise to Alpharetta Homeowners
Flint Chimney Sweep runs on a value system called The Garrison Code. Each one is short enough to remember and specific enough to be held to:
- Show up inside the window we gave. No four-hour vague arrival blocks. We tell you when we’re coming, and we’re there.
- Price in writing before any work starts. The number we quote is the number you pay. No door-stop surprises.
- Do it by the book, the first time. Clearances checked, codes followed, work done right.
- Leave the site clean and squared away. If you can’t tell we were there except that the chimney is clean, that’s the goal.
- Stand behind the work for a full year. If it fails in that time, we come back and make it right at no charge.
Every Garrison company works to the same standard. That’s what drew us to the brand. The discipline was already in place. Our job in Alpharetta is to deliver it in a way that feels local, because it is local. We’re an independent local business that agreed to work to The Garrison Standard. That agreement means something to us every time we pull up to a house off Windward Parkway or a cul-de-sac in Crabapple.
Our Credentials
- Licensed and insured as required. Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires.
- Insured and bonded. We carry the coverage a homeowner should expect from anyone working in their home.
- More than a decade of chimney and venting experience. Hank Delano built his local reputation the slow way, one inspection at a time.
- A local reputation built on camera evidence. We don’t ask you to take our word for a repair. We show you the flue on video and let you decide.
Here’s why those matter. A license means the person on your roof has met a baseline standard and can be held accountable. Insurance and bonding protect you if something goes wrong on your property. And experience means you’re not hiring someone who’s learning on your chimney. When you hand your house keys and your family’s safety to a contractor, those credentials aren’t paperwork. They’re the minimum.
Rooted in Alpharetta
We don’t pretend Flint Chimney Sweep was born in Alpharetta. The brand started in 2002, and its roots run through the Garrison Partners family of brands. But this branch is local, and we treat it that way. We serve the neighborhoods we drive through: downtown Alpharetta, the houses along Rucker Road, the cluster of chimneys near Milton, and the newer builds pushing toward Cumming and Johns Creek. When the weather turns and the first cold snap hits, we’re cleaning flues in the same zip codes where we buy our own groceries. That’s not a marketing line. It’s just the reason this branch exists: because Alpharetta homeowners deserve a chimney company that’s actually from here, not one that just passes through.
Written by Hank Delano, Owner at Flint Chimney Co Alpharetta, serving Alpharetta and the surrounding North Fulton and South Forsyth communities.