Meet the Team - Top Hat Chimney

Meet the Deer Park Team Behind Top Hat Chimney

We’re not a rotating cast. The crew you see on your roof in Deer Park is the same crew that lives within 20 minutes of your street. Most of us have worked together for over a decade, and more than a few started right here on Long Island learning the trade the slow way: hauling soot buckets, handing up brushes, watching a senior sweep read a flue before touching a single tool. What unites us is simple. We believe a chimney should be inspected with a camera, priced before work begins, and left cleaner than we found it. Every person on this roster answers to Wendell Pike directly, and every job carries the same 90-Day Done Right Promise.

Our People

Wendell Pike, Owner and Founder

Wendell started Top Hat Chimney in 1999 with a single truck, a set of brushes, and a conviction that chimney work should be honest enough to survive a Saturday run-in at the grocery store. Nearly three decades later, he still answers the phone when he’s not on a roof, and he’s known to show up on service calls unannounced just to keep his eye on the work. Wendell holds certifications in chimney inspection and repair, and he has personally installed more DuraFlex and HeatShield liners than he’d bother counting. His view on the trade hasn’t changed since the beginning: your flue doesn’t care how the fire looks. It cares how it breathes. If a chimney doesn’t need work, Wendell will tell you that before you ask. He’d rather earn a customer for 20 years than sell a liner someone didn’t need.

Tommy G., Lead Technician

Tommy has been with Top Hat for 14 years, and he’s the guy Wendell sends when a Deer Park homeowner has a chimney problem nobody can quite diagnose. He’s our lead technician and the most methodical sweep on the roster. Tommy specializes in third-degree creosote removal and stainless steel liner installation, and he’s completed advanced training with DuraFlex and Gelco systems. He keeps a worn notebook in the truck with sketches of unusual flue configurations he’s run into across the island. When Tommy tells you a crown needs sealing, he’ll show you the camera footage and a plain-English verdict every time. His hobby is restoring old bicycles, which explains the permanently grease-stained hands he apologizes for before every handshake.

Sarah M., Service Coordinator

Sarah is the voice on the phone when you call Top Hat at 2 a.m. or 2 p.m. She has been with the company for 9 years and handles scheduling, upfront pricing, and the endless logistics of routing a chimney crew across Suffolk County without making anyone wait in a four-hour window. Sarah knows every neighborhood we serve, from Deer Park Avenue to the streets around Tanger Outlets, and she can usually tell you within minutes when the crew can be on your block. She’s the reason your arrival window is real and why the phone never rolls to voicemail. When Sarah says someone will call if the schedule slips, it’s not a corporate script. It’s a promise she enforces personally. She bakes aggressively and has strong opinions about which Deer Park deli makes a proper bacon-egg-and-cheese.

Chris D., Senior Installer

Chris is our senior installer and the specialist Wendell and Tommy turn to for full chimney rebuilds, crown work, and liner replacements. He’s been in the trade for 18 years, 11 of them at Top Hat. Chris handles the heavy masonry side of our work: repointing, chimney cap installation, top-seal dampers, and structural repairs that keep water from turning a Deer Park chimney into a pile of spalled brick. He’s certified to install products from Olympia Chimney, Famco, and Copperfield, and he has a reputation on the crew for being the one who brings the crooked chimney back to plumb. Chris is a volunteer firefighter in his home town and has seen firsthand what a neglected flue can do, which is why he’ll never rush a liner inspection. He’ll knock on your door, show you what he found, and hand you the same honest answer whether the repair is urgent or can safely wait.

Mike R., Apprentice Sweep

Mike is the newest member of the crew, and Wendell hired him two years ago after Mike spent a summer shadowing Tommy on residential cleanings. He’s working through his certification track and already handles standard chimney sweeping, ash vacuuming, and basic crown inspections on his own. Mike grew up in the area and drives past his own elementary school on half of his routes. He’s the one carrying the heavier drop cloths up the driveway and double-checking that every last fleck of soot stays out of your living room. Ask anyone on your street: the new kid is thorough to the point of obsession. When he’s not on a roof, Mike is either at the batting cages or teaching himself to smoke brisket, with mixed results.

One Standard, Every Job

Every person on this page works under the same rule Wendell laid down in 1999: do the work as if the customer is going to see you again on Saturday. That means the number you hear on the phone is the number on the invoice. No surprises after the fact, no vague recommendations, no prescription without proof. Wendell and his crew carry cameras on every call, and the footage comes back with a plain-English explanation of what’s happening inside your flue. If the work isn’t done right, the 90-Day Done Right Promise means one call brings the crew back at no additional cost. That promise is written on every job ticket, and it applies whether the work was a simple sweep or a full liner rebuild. Twenty-nine years in, the standard has never changed. The team is local, the answers are specific, and the work either holds up or we make it right.

Written by Wendell Pike, Owner at Top Hat Chimney, serving Deer Park and surrounding Suffolk County communities since 1999.