Meet the Team - Top Hat Chimney

Meet the Charlottesville Team Behind Top Hat Chimney

Top Hat Chimney has been working in Charlottesville homes since before the Downtown Mall pavilion got its current look. Wendell Pike started this company in 1999 with one truck and a rule: treat every flue like it belongs to your own grandmother. The crew he’s built since then shares that instinct. Four people, plus Wendell, cover most of the Charlottesville calls. They know the old coal flues in Belmont, the tall caps in Keswick, and which North Downtown chimneys lean just enough to notice. None of them are new to this work, and none of them will rush your job to get to the next one.

Call (540) 503-3890

Our People

Wendell Pike, Owner and Lead Technician

Wendell founded Top Hat Chimney in 1999 and still climbs roofs most weeks. The first thing to know: he answers the phone. Not always, but often, and when he does you’ll hear it in his voice that he’d rather be standing in your driveway than talking about standing in your driveway. He started sweeping flues in the early 90s, long before venting codes became dinner-table conversation. Since then he has rebuilt more Charlottesville chimney crowns than he can count, and he’ll tell you right now that third-degree creosote is what actually keeps him up, not the scheduling. Wendell writes the 90-Day Done Right Promise on every invoice himself and means it, because he runs into you again on Saturday. His bio would be incomplete without this: he still gets a little suspicious when a chimney looks too clean, and he has never once told a customer they needed work they didn’t need just to fill a slow week.

Marcus T., Senior Installer

Marcus has been with Top Hat for fourteen years, longer than anyone except Wendell. He handles most liner installations and rebuilds in the Charlottesville area, and he treats a damaged flue tile the way a mechanic treats a timing chain: find the failure, show you the camera footage, then fix it correctly the first time. Marcus is certified on DuraFlex and HeatShield systems and has pulled more old terra cotta liners out of Fry’s Spring homes than he cares to remember. He carries a notebook in the truck and sketches mortar repairs before he mixes a single batch. Outside of chimneys, Marcus restores bicycles, mostly old Schwinns, and he’ll occasionally point out a good riding route near the Rivanna if you ask.

Dana R., Service Coordinator

Dana answers the phone at Top Hat, which means you are getting a live person every time, not a voicemail box, not a call center. She has been doing this for nine years and can usually tell you within a minute whether your situation needs a sweep or a repair, and whether it can wait a week. Dana builds the schedule so each technician gets a real arrival window with a promise to call if anything slips. She grew up in Albemarle County and knows the back roads well enough to give directions that actually work when the GPS sends a new guy to a gated farm lane that hasn’t existed since 2005. Dana keeps a list of every senior and veteran discount applied, every free second opinion scheduled, and every county call with no trip charge. If you call on a weekend, there is a good chance you’ll be talking to Dana before Wendell snatches the phone.

Jordan P., Apprentice Sweep

Jordan joined Top Hat two years ago as the crew’s first apprentice from the Charlottesville area, and he has already logged more than 600 sweeps. He rides with Marcus on most liner jobs and with Wendell on the rest, which means he’s learning both sides: the careful diagnostics and the straightforward brush work. Jordan passed his background check and shows up in uniform like everyone else, but his real credential so far is that Wendell lets him do the camera inspections solo on smaller jobs. He will often be the one explaining what you’re seeing on the screen, and he’s getting good at plain-English verdicts without drifting into jargon. Jordan grew up in a house with a wood stove in Earlysville and still splits firewood for his parents every fall, which is probably why he treats first-degree creosote as a brush job and gets genuinely interested when a fireplace misbehaves.

One Standard, Every Job

Top Hat Chimney has one rule that overrides every other instruction: no tool comes off the truck until you know the price. That started with Wendell in 1999 and hasn’t changed with a bigger crew. Every job gets the camera footage and a plain-English verdict, no exceptions. The appointment gets a real window, and if something slips, someone calls you, because Dana sits next to the schedule board and Wendell hates surprises more than you do. Every technician is background-checked, uniformed, and working under the same 90-Day Done Right Promise. The standing offers apply everywhere, too: $40 off any repair over $200, a free second opinion on any competing written estimate, no trip charge inside the county, and 10% off for seniors and veterans every day of the week. Wendell puts his name on the work, and so does each person in this section. If it’s not done right, one call brings the crew back.

Frequently Asked Questions