What Norwalk Homeowners Say About Top Hat Chimney
Reviews matter because a chimney is the one part of the house you can’t easily inspect yourself. You can stand in the living room and admire the brick, but you can’t see the flue liner, the crown, or the creosote building up above the damper. That’s why we post what Norwalk neighbors actually tell us after the job is done. Wendell Pike started Top Hat Chimney in 1999 and has spent 29 years earning that word of mouth one sweep at a time. He lives here, runs into you at Stew Leonard’s, and knows his name is on every job. We don’t buy reviews. We earn them by showing up on time, charging what we quoted, and handing you camera footage of what we found before we ask for a dime.
Below are a few recent notes from customers around Norwalk, Rowayton, Silvermine, and Broad River. They’re real people with real fireplaces, and they said it better than we could.
Recent Reviews
“Wendell’s crew came out to our 1920s colonial near the Norwalk Green and found a third-degree creosote glaze I’d been ignoring for two seasons. They showed me the camera footage right there on the driveway, explained what I was seeing, and gave me a price before anything came off the truck. The flue was clean by early afternoon. No upsell, no drama, just honest work.”
Sana G. – Norwalk Green
“We bought our house in Broad River and had no idea when the chimney was last swept. Wendell put a camera up there and walked me through every inch of the liner. Turns out it had a cracked tile, nothing catastrophic yet, but he told me plainly what could wait and what couldn’t. I respected that. We did the repair and he knocked $40 off since it was over $200. That’s how you keep a customer.”
Brooke R. – Broad River
“I called on a Sunday evening because our fireplace had been smoking back into the living room all afternoon. A live person answered, not a voicemail box. The sweep showed up the next morning in uniform, gave me a real arrival window, called when he was ten minutes out, and fixed a blocked cap in under an hour. The invoice matched the phone estimate to the penny.”
Neil M. – Rowayton
“Wendell’s done our chimney three years running now, always in September before burning season. This year he found a cracked crown letting water down the brick face. He didn’t push a full rebuild. He sealed it, explained the limits of the fix, and told me to watch for spalling over the winter. Honest, specific, and half the price a franchise quoted for the same job.”
Jodi S. – Silvermine
“A different company wrote me an estimate for a new liner after a three-minute glance. Wendell came out, ran a camera down the flue, and showed me the actual condition of the clay tiles. They were fine. He swept it, checked the cap, and charged me for the sweep and nothing else. He could have sold me a liner. He chose not to. That’s the guy I’m calling next year.”
Sana G. – Cranbury
“We had the full package done in October, sweep plus crown coating plus new cap. The crew was background-checked and uniformed, which mattered to my wife. They laid drop cloths, kept the hearth clean, and the 90-Day Done Right Promise came in writing on the invoice. A week later the cap shifted slightly in a windstorm. One call and Wendell was back the next day, fixed it at no charge, no argument. That promise is real.”
Brooke R. – West Norwalk
Why Customers Trust Us
Trust is not a slogan. It’s a camera, a written guarantee, and a live person on the phone. Every single job at Top Hat Chimney includes a camera inspection with a plain-English walkthrough of what we found. You never have to take our word for it. If we recommend a repair, you’ll see the footage first, because your flue doesn’t care how the fire looks, it cares how it breathes, and the camera shows exactly how it’s breathing. The 90-Day Done Right Promise is stamped on every invoice: if the work isn’t right, one call brings Wendell back. No form, no claim number, no runaround. Phones are answered by a live person twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and it may well be Wendell picking up. Pricing is settled before a tool leaves the truck, so the number you hear is the number you pay. Technicians are background-checked, uniformed, and give you a real arrival window. Wendell has lived and worked here since 1999, and he will run into you again on Saturday. That alone keeps him honest. Call (475) 375-2748 to book a sweep or get a straight answer about your chimney.
Written by Wendell Pike, Owner at Top Hat Chimney, serving Norwalk and Fairfield County since 1999.