How Top Hat Chimney Came to Brooklyn
Top Hat Chimney is a name that has meant something in the chimney trade since 1999, and when we brought the brand to Brooklyn, we did it because this city has a particular relationship with its rooftops that no other place quite matches. Brownstones in Park Slope with hundred-year-old flues, walkups in Ridgewood where three generations have cooked on the same stove, new steel-and-glass builds near the waterfront that need a different kind of attention entirely. Brooklyn chimney work is not a one-size-fits-all trade, and we knew the people doing it here needed to know the difference between a Flatbush Victorian and a Williamsburg loft conversion.
Wendell Pike took the lead on building the Brooklyn branch because he has spent his working life learning what happens when a chimney gets ignored. Before this location opened, he had walked onto rooftops in neighborhoods all over this city and seen the same story play out: a homeowner calls after the fireplaces and stoves have already been running for a month, the flue is coated, the cap is rusted through, and a five-hundred-dollar sweep has turned into a liner conversation nobody wanted to have in November. He made a promise the day the Brooklyn branch went live that the conversation here would always start with the camera footage, never with a sales pitch.
We did not invent the Top Hat name. We are the local branch of a brand that has been sweeping chimneys since 1999, and our job in Brooklyn is to carry that standard into every flue we touch. The brand was built on a simple idea: the sweep knows the chimney, tells you the truth, and shows you the proof. That idea travels well. It fits Brooklyn because Brooklyn homeowners ask hard questions. They want to see the damage before they agree to the fix. They want a name they can verify and a face they will see again on the sidewalk. That is exactly who we are.
Wendell Pike’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
Wendell Pike got into this trade the way most people who stay in it do: he went up on a roof one day to solve a problem and never really came back down. He was not born into a chimney family. There was no handed-down soot brush on the mantle. What happened was simpler. He was working on a house, an old brick row home, and the owner had been told by another company that the chimney needed to be rebuilt. Top to bottom. The quote was staggering. The homeowner had saved for a year and was about to sign. Wendell asked if he could take a look first.
He borrowed a flashlight and a mirror and got up there expecting to confirm the bad news. What he found was a chimney with cosmetic brick wear and a flue that was dirty but structurally sound. The rebuild was unnecessary. A thorough cleaning, some repointing, and a new cap were all the chimney actually needed. He told the homeowner that. It cost him nothing to say it and it changed the course of the man’s year. That moment stuck with Wendell in a way that is hard to describe unless you have been the person on the receiving end of a quote you cannot afford. He realized the chimney trade had a trust problem, and he wanted to be on the side of it that fixed the problem instead of profiting from it.
He started learning everything he could. He spent years on rooftops in every kind of weather, the cold that makes your fingers clumsy and the summer heat that bakes the tar under your boots. He learned the smell of first-degree creosote, sharp and smoky, and the way third-degree glaze shines under a flashlight like black glass. He learned how a flue sounds when it breathes right, a steady draw you can feel with the back of your hand at the damper. He learned when a chimney needs work and, just as importantly, when it does not. After more than a decade of it, the work stopped being a job and became a way of measuring the season. Autumn in this city smells like leaves and woodsmoke, and Wendell is already on the roofs before the first fire is lit.
What gets him out of bed in the morning is the knowledge that a chimney is one of the few parts of a home where neglect stays invisible until it becomes dangerous. A roof leak shows itself. A cracked tile is obvious. A chimney fire starts inside a passage no one looks at from one year to the next. Wendell has made it his personal mission that no Brooklyn homeowner who calls Top Hat will ever have to wonder what is happening inside their own flue. They will see the footage. They will get a plain-English verdict. And if the chimney does not need to be swept, he will tell them that too, even though it costs him the job.
If he were not sweeping chimneys, he thinks he would probably be restoring the old interior plaster in the historic homes he sees from the rooftops. He likes work that shows its age and rewards patience. There is a connection there. A chimney and a plaster wall both hold the history of a house in a way that new construction never will. But he found the chimney trade first, and he has never once regretted it.
Meet Wendell Pike - The Person Behind Every Job
Wendell Pike is the Owner & Founder of Top Hat Chimney’s Brooklyn branch, and the name on the hat is not a gimmick. The sweep in the top hat is the oldest good-luck figure in the chimney trade, and Wendell actually wears one to the door. It gets a smile, and the smile matters, because a chimney sweep arriving at your home should feel like a neighbor stopping by, not a technician with a tablet and a price sheet.
He brings more than a decade of hands-on chimney experience to every job, from basic sweeps to full camera inspections, and he has spent years learning how Brooklyn’s housing stock behaves differently from block to block. What separates Wendell from a franchise technician is that he will put his name and his face on the work long after the truck leaves. He answers the phone. He remembers your house next autumn. He would rather keep you as a customer for twenty years than win one big ticket today. That is not a slogan. It is how he has always operated.
Our Promise to Brooklyn Homeowners
We run this branch on the L.O.C.A.L. code, and we will spell it out because we mean it. Local roots means an address in this county, not a call center three states away. On time means the window we give you is the window, and we call if it slips. Community first means we live here, we work here, and we run into you again on a Saturday. Accountable means the owner puts his name on the work and answers the phone. Loyal means we would rather keep you for twenty years than win one big ticket.
Every job ends with camera footage and a plain-English verdict. If your chimney does not need sweeping, we will tell you that to your face, even though it costs us the fee. That is the whole promise. It sounds simple because it is.
Our Credentials
When you hire a chimney company, you are inviting someone into your home and onto your roof, so you should know exactly who you are dealing with.
- Licensed: every pro working under the Top Hat name is required to hold the license their state requires for chimney work. We will never ask you to take our word on anything you can verify yourself.
- Insured & bonded: coverage is in place for the work we do in your home. We have never had a Brooklyn homeowner hesitate to ask about it, and we have never minded answering.
- Years of local experience: the team that serves Brooklyn has been working on the rooftops of this city for more than a decade. We know a Brownstone flue from a walkup flue, and we know which neighborhoods see the worst creosote buildup each winter.
- Strong local reputation: ask anyone on your street. That is not a line. In Brooklyn, word travels block by block, and we have built our name one chimney at a time.
These credentials matter because a chimney is not a cosmetic feature. It is a passage for fire and exhaust running through the center of your home. The person who works on it should be accountable, reachable, and standing behind the job long after the invoice is paid. That is the standard we hold ourselves to, and the one you should hold any chimney company to.
Rooted in Brooklyn
We work in Brooklyn Heights, Williamsburg, Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Flatbush, Bensonhurst, Canarsie, Red Hook, Sunset Park, Ridgewood, and Glendale. Wendell lives in this city and has for years. He shops at the same hardware stores as his customers. His truck carries the Top Hat name, and when he is not on a roof, he is probably standing in line behind you on a Saturday afternoon. That is the oldest accountability mechanism there is, and we would not trade it for anything.
Your flue doesn’t care how the fire looks. It cares how it breathes. And in Brooklyn, it breathes better when someone who knows the city is taking care of it. Call us at (516) 289-9316 and we will bring the hat.
Written by Wendell Pike, Owner & Founder of Top Hat Chimney in Brooklyn.