National Inventor's Month has come and gone, but at HY-C, the celebration continues. Meet the inventors behind the Hearth Stopper®, the only customizable, decorative, insulated fireplace cover designed to reduce drafts, save money, block pests, and look great!
For Danielle and Tim Owens, invention didn't start in a lab. It started at home.
Danielle Owens has lived many lives. Now a special education teacher, she is also a mother, a problem-solver, and, unexpectedly, an inventor. As the owner of Hearth Stopper, she co-created the product alongside her husband Tim, a banker by trade — a fireplace solution born not from industry expertise, but from everyday frustration.
For the Owens, everything begins with family.
The idea for the Hearth Stopper came from their own home life: Drafty air, energy loss, and a growing awareness that their space was not working for them. But to understand why that mattered so much, you have to go back a few years.
When the Owens' son was born in 2016, he spent 30 days in the NICU before coming home. Three years later, their daughter arrived into what the family already knew would be a high-risk pregnancy. She was born six weeks early and required immediate surgery, followed by 96 days in the NICU and nearly two weeks on an oscillating ventilator. The doctors were cautious about her odds. She defied them.
Six months after coming home, the Owens' daughter contracted RSV and returned to the ICU for another 18 days.
"She spent 42% of her first year of life in the ICU," Tim said.
Like many parents navigating serious childhood illness, life shifted quickly. Tim left his job. The couple sold off a portfolio of properties. The focus became simple: Do whatever it takes.
When their daughter finally came home for good, it was just before Christmas. The Owens had recently moved into a house near her hospital in the Kansas City area. And inside, a steady stream of cold air poured in through the fireplace.
"We felt like we couldn't let our baby play on the floor because of the cold draft the fireplace was letting in," Danielle said. "We were always searching for a way to solve the draft issue."
They couldn't find one.
Not long after, a bat found its way into the house straight through the fireplace. It was the kind of moment that crystallizes a problem. Not only was the fireplace uncomfortable; it was also an open door.
Like many inventions, the Hearth Stopper didn't start polished. Actually, it started with a trash bag.
"Tim has always been full of ideas, but when Covid hit and we had more time at home, it really motivated both of us to make this idea come to life," Danielle said.
"There's a picture of our son lying on the floor next to a trash bag that was taped up on the fireplace," Tim added. "That was the original."
From there, iteration took over.
The process was constant trial and error, shaped by feedback from friends and neighbors. One particular neighbor happened to be a lead product designer at Hallmark, and they introduced the Owens to thermoforming. They found a manufacturer in New York to produce the first run.
The result: A thermoformed front with a polystyrene insulation core and a flat back.
"I'm not an engineer," Tim said. "I've never done anything like this before. [I was] just trying to figure out what would work."
From the start, Danielle focused on how the product would actually live inside a home.
"Tim mastered the functional aspect of the product, and I wanted to make sure it was easy to install and something that would blend into a home's decor," she said. "Ideally, it would not be noticed as a functional piece at all."
And their son, who was there through the entire development process, still has every iteration committed to memory. At five years old, he filmed a video recapping each version of the product from start to finish. He watched his parents build something, and it stuck.
What started as a simple comfort fix revealed a much bigger issue: Energy loss.
"You lose between 15% and 30% of your energy through your fireplace," Tim said. "And up to 40% more through your windows."
Most people ignore the problem, Tim noted, because it seems too big to fix. The Hearth Stopper was designed to prove otherwise.
Today, it:
That last point surprised even the Owens. They started getting orders from Arizona — places like Yuma, where the desert heat pushes down through chimneys in summer. Chimney technicians confirmed it: A pressurized fireplace pushes hot air back out, and the Hearth Stopper keeps it there. What was once a winter solution turned out to be a year-round one.
Unexpected benefits came from customers, too. Families with young children bought it to keep toddlers away from the fireplace opening. People with allergies found that sealing the fireplace significantly reduced pollen and allergens flowing in, especially during spring. The Owens saw it in their own home first — their son has severe asthma and allergies — and customers only confirmed what they experienced.
Bringing the product to life was not easy.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, plastic manufacturing all but shut down for small projects. Most companies were producing Plexiglas barriers. Tim made somewhere between 600 and 700 calls trying to find a manufacturer willing to help.
"Nobody would talk to us," he said. "One guy told me, 'I'm not stopping my run of 100,000 to make your little fireplace deal.'"
The government wasn't much easier. An attempt to earn an ENERGY STAR rating stalled when the Department of Energy said they didn't certify products that only stopped air leakage through a single opening. Ironically, their contact at the DOE mentioned he'd love to buy one himself, Tim added.
One letter, from a manufacturer in San Diego, stated plainly that the product would never work and that no one would ever buy it. Tim kept that letter. Today, it hangs framed above his desk.
On top of that, the Owens were also navigating profound personal loss during this period. Danielle's mother suffered a stroke. Tim lost both of his parents within weeks of each other. Still, they kept going.
There were moments when walking away felt like the easier option. The Owens admitted they'd tried quitting five or six times.
"We had many walls that made us question if we were putting our efforts in the right place," Danielle said.
During one of those moments, it was their son who changed the course.
"Daddy, you can't quit," he told Tim. "You work too hard on it."
So, they didn't stop. Not just for the product, but for what it represented.
"Our kids watching us follow our dreams and think outside of the box is a proud parent moment I hope we all remember," Danielle said. "They have seen us work hard and not give up. That is a characteristic I hope both our children have as they grow older. Creative minds change the world."
Their goal as parents was clear: Show their children what persistence looks like. When Tim asks their daughter what she can do, she already knows the answer.
"I can do hard things," she says.
Looking back, the Owens are candid about the process.
"We didn't know what we didn't know," Danielle said.
"Companies create products now, not individuals," Tim added. “Things have changed.”
They spent years navigating licensing, manufacturing, and scaling, learning lessons the hard way. The ENERGY STAR experience alone took months and thousands of dollars before they hit a wall. But each obstacle clarified what the product was, who it was for, and how to talk about it.
Momentum shifted when HY-C Company entered the picture.
With HY-C's support, the Hearth Stopper was refined and built for scale:
"They helped adjust the manufacturing to make it more cost effective," Tim said.
With a U.S. patent now secured and approvals pending in Canada and Europe — where millions of fireplaces exist — the Hearth Stopper is positioned for growth.
The impact of the Hearth Stopper is not theoretical. It’s practical.
One customer called to thank Tim after the Hearth Stopper saved her family $40,000. They’d been planning to gut their fireplace entirely, tearing out the wall and rebuilding. Instead, they installed a Hearth Stopper. Problem solved.
For the Owens, that is what matters most: A straightforward solution that makes a real difference.
Danielle and Tim Owens did not set out to become inventors. They became inventors by solving a problem, staying with it, and refusing to quit — even when quitting seemed like the only reasonable option.
Their daughter is seven years old now. She weighs 42 pounds. She's starting softball. She's happy, she's healthy, and she beat just about every odd the doctors gave her.
The Hearth Stopper is still catching up to her.
Now, the Owens continue developing hearth solutions, grounded in the same philosophy that started it all: Make something that works, make it for people, and as they've shown their kids, don't stop.