Meet the Team - Ashby Chimney San Diego

Meet the San Diego Team Behind Ashby Chimney San Diego

We’ve been sweeping and repairing chimneys across San Diego since 2002, and the crew we send to your door is the reason people call us back the next year. No subcontractors, no rotating cast of strangers. Our technicians are background-checked, uniformed, and trained to follow one standard, the Kingswell Way: say the price, show up in the window, leave it cleaner, put the guarantee in writing, and come back if it fails. Nathan Corliss owns this location and sets the tone himself.

Our People

Nathan Corliss, Owner

Nathan has spent over two decades on rooftops and hearths across San Diego County, long enough to have seen every liner material, every firebox design, and every strange thing a raccoon can drag down a flue. He started Ashby Chimney in 2002 because he was tired of the way chimney work got sold: vague estimates, scare tactics, and recommendations nobody could verify. His rule is simple. We show you the flue on camera before quoting any repair, because you shouldn’t have to take anyone’s word for what’s happening twenty feet above your firebox. Nathan still rides along on complex jobs in areas like Mission Hills and Point Loma, where older homes hide surprises behind the damper. He’d rather talk about creosote stages than make small talk, and he’d rather hand you a written price than give you a pitch.

Marcus D., Lead Technician

Marcus has been with the San Diego team for nine years and handles the majority of our Level 2 chimney inspections. He’s the one crawling into attics in Clairemont and University Heights with a camera scope, mapping flue paths and looking for the hairline cracks that precede a liner failure. Marcus is certified through the Chimney Safety Institute of America and keeps his continuing education current every year, which means he’s up to date on the latest changes to clearance and venting requirements in California. He grew up in El Cajon and knows which neighborhoods have the oldest masonry and which fireplaces were built by the same handful of masons in the 1950s. Ask him about heat shields and he’ll give you a straight answer about whether yours actually needs one, which it usually doesn’t.

Sofia R., Senior Installer

Sofia leads our repair and installation work, including flue liner replacement (the clay or steel tube that vents combustion gases out of your home) and firebox rebuilding. She’s been installing stainless steel liners for over eight years and has worked with DuraFlex and Olympia Chimney systems long enough to know their quirks before she even opens the box. Sofia runs our trickiest jobs here in San Diego, the ones where access is tight, the roof pitch is steep, or the homeowner has questions about every step of the process. She’s patient, methodical, and keeps a clean job site to a standard that most contractors wouldn’t recognize. On weekends she restores vintage camp stoves, which tells you everything about how much she enjoys making fire-related things work properly.

Danny T., Service Coordinator

Danny is the voice you’ll hear when you call Ashby Chimney. He’s been answering our phones for six years and still gets a certain dry satisfaction from giving someone a straight answer instead of a callback. Every call gets a live person, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and Danny handles most of the daytime scheduling. He knows the difference between a Level 1 sweep and a Level 2 inspection well enough to help you decide which one you actually need without wasting a booking. Danny also keeps the parts shelf stocked with materials from HeatShield, Gelco, Famco, and Copperfield, because ordering the right component the first time keeps a repair from dragging into a second visit. If you call with a question about your fireplace and he doesn’t know the answer immediately, he’ll find out and call you back. That’s not a script. It’s how we work.

One Standard, Every Job

Every Ashby Chimney location is independently owned and operated under the Kingswell Guarantee, but the standard doesn’t vary from one city to the next. The five values stay the same whether you’re in San Diego or another Kingswell market: say the price, show up in the window, leave it cleaner, put the guarantee in writing, come back if it fails. Our crew knows that the written price comes before any work starts, no exceptions. They know that every repair gets a written guarantee, that a failed repair inside the guarantee period means a free second visit, and that the 365-Day Done Right Promise applies to every job we do. That’s the Kingswell Way, and it’s not a plaque on a wall. It’s the reason Marcus shows you the camera footage before he quotes a liner, and the reason Sofia leaves your hearth cleaner than she found it.

Ashby carries ash right in the name, fitting for the people whose job is to clean it out. But the name only matters if the people behind it show up, do the work, and stand behind it. That’s what we’ve done in San Diego since 2002.

Written by Nathan Corliss, Owner at Ashby Chimney San Diego, serving San Diego since 2002.