How Flint Chimney Co Miami Was Born in Miami
We didn’t start this branch because Miami was an obvious market on a spreadsheet. We started it because the phone kept ringing with the same story. A homeowner in Coral Gables pays a few hundred dollars for a sweep, gets handed a blurry photo of “damage,” and is told they need a liner replacement they can’t verify. The crew is gone in forty minutes. The invoice shows up with charges they never agreed to. And the chimney still smokes into the living room when the wind shifts off the bay.
The Garrison Partners family has held Flint Chimney Sweep to a single standard since 2002: a clean, safe chimney every time. Written price before any work starts. A full-year guarantee on every job. When this location opened, Hank Delano came on to lead it because he had spent years watching what happened to homeowners who hired the wrong crew, and he was tired of it. Miami deserved a chimney company that ran on the same discipline the brand was built on. So we built that here. No blurry photos. No mystery charges. Just the work, done by the book, with your name on the line.
Hank Delano’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Hank Delano didn’t grow up planning to spend his career looking up flues. The trade found him, the way it finds a lot of people who stay in it: he took a job on a crew because it was work, and then something clicked that he couldn’t shake. The first chimney he ever swept by himself was in an older home in Miami Lakes. He remembers the smell of the creosote, sharp and oily, and the fine black dust that settled on his arms while he worked the brush up through the flue. When he dropped the inspection camera down that chimney and saw the cracked tile liner glowing on the screen, he understood something that has never left him: this wasn’t just a cleaning job. It was the difference between a family sleeping warm and a fire in the walls at three in the morning.
What kept him in the trade was the honesty of it. A chimney doesn’t lie. The camera shows you exactly what’s there. The sweep is either done or it isn’t. The draft is either drawing or it’s not. Hank liked that. He liked walking out of a house knowing the work was real. Over the years, that turned into a personal standard. He’d watch other crews knock off early, skip the smoke shelf, rush the inspection, and he’d shake his head. He found himself redoing work that should have been done right the first time. The training he received from the tradesmen who taught him was old-school: the brush work, the pellet-by-pellet inspection, the ear for the change in sound when a flue is clear. That’s what he passes on to the local team in Miami now. Not shortcuts. Not scripts. Just the work, done the way it’s supposed to be done, with something on the line that matters to him personally.
Meet Hank Delano – The Person Behind Every Job
Hank Delano is the Owner & Founder of this Flint Chimney Co Miami location. He came up doing the trade with his own hands, learning the craft from seasoned sweepers who treated chimney work as a discipline, not a side hustle. He’s trained in the full scope of what a chimney needs: sweeping, camera inspection, liner assessment, cap and chase work. He’s the person who sets the standard for every job this branch takes on, and he’s the person who holds the team to it.
What separates Hank from a franchise technician with a van and a quota is simple: he answers for the work. He doesn’t hide behind a brand. When this location takes a call from a homeowner in South Miami, the job is done to the standard he’d want in his own home. And the detail that tells you who he is: on his day off, you’ll find him close to the water, putting in the quiet time that balances out the grime of a work week spent in flues. That isn’t a sales pitch. It’s just who he is. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Our Promise to Miami Homeowners
Every Flint Chimney Sweep location works to the same five standards, and this Miami branch holds them as the floor, not the ceiling. We call it The Garrison Code, and it’s not a poster on the wall. It’s how every job runs.
- Show up inside the window we gave. We tell you when we’ll arrive, and that’s when we arrive. You don’t burn a day off waiting.
- Price in writing before any work starts. You see the number and you approve it before our tools come out. No surprises at the door.
- Do it by the book, the first time. We sweep, inspect, and report. We don’t cut corners because corners in a chimney are where fires start.
- Leave the site clean and squared away. You don’t find soot dust on your mantle, your hearth, or your living room floor. We treat your home like we’d treat a family member’s home.
- Stand behind the work for a full year. The work is guaranteed in writing for a full year. If it fails in that time, we come back and make it right at no charge.
That last one matters. A guarantee is only as good as the company willing to put it in writing. We do.
Our Credentials
Here’s the honest version, the way we’d want it read to us if we were hiring someone to work in our home.
- State-licensed. Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license their state requires. No exceptions.
- Insured & bonded. We carry the coverage that protects you and your home. That’s not optional for us.
- Years of local experience. This branch has served Miami and the surrounding communities long enough to know the common problems in local chimneys: salt air corrosion on caps near the bay, creosote buildup from winter burns, humidity that gets into masonry and does quiet damage.
- Strong local reputation. Homeowners across Miami, Coral Gables, and Miami Lakes trust this team. That trust is earned one chimney at a time.
Here’s why those credentials matter when you’re hiring someone to work in your home: a licensed, insured pro has a real stake in doing the job right. A license means they answer to a real authority. Insurance means if something goes wrong on your property, you’re not left holding the bill. And a local reputation means the person standing in your living room has a reason to make sure you’d call them back. Those aren’t extras. They’re the baseline.
Rooted in Miami
Miami isn’t just our service area. It’s where our team lives, shops, and picks up coffee on the way to a job in the morning. We know the difference between a chimney in a 1950s rancher in Olympia Heights and a high-ceilinged build in Sunny Isles Beach. We know salt air chews through chase covers faster near the water than it does inland. We know the wind patterns off Biscayne Bay. That local knowledge is worth something. It’s what lets us give you real answers instead of generic ones.