Meet the Team - Top Hat Chimney

Meet the Rockville Team Behind Top Hat Chimney

Most chimney companies send a different face every time. Not here. The crew that shows up in Rockville, Bethesda, Potomac, and Gaithersburg has been climbing ladders around Montgomery County for years, most of them for over a decade. We live here. We shop at the same hardware stores. The truck you see on Seven Locks Road on Tuesday is parked at a house three blocks from yours on Sunday. That changes how we work. You don’t cut corners when you’re going to run into the homeowner at the Giant on Saturday.

Our People

Wendell Pike – Owner, Lead Technician

Wendell started Top Hat Chimney in 1999 with one truck, a brush set, and a notebook. Twenty-nine years later, he still puts on the work belt most mornings. He has swept more flues in Rockville than he can count, and he still finds something that surprises him every month, which is exactly why he keeps climbing. Wendell holds CSIA certification and has rebuilt liners from Twinbrook to King Farm. He does the final walkthrough on every larger job, reviews the camera footage himself, and signs every Done Right Promise card that leaves the truck. His wife will tell you he can’t sit still on a Sunday. He will tell you Sunday is for checking the truck inventory.

Marcus T. – Senior Installer, Liner & Rebuild Specialist

Marcus joined Wendell in 2008 after five years doing fireplace masonry in Baltimore. If your chimney needs a new DuraFlex liner, a HeatShield resurfacing, or a full rebuild from the roofline up, Marcus is the one mixing mortar and guiding the sections down the flue. He’s the reason we can take on the jobs other companies refer out. Marcus is certified in HeatShield applications and has installed every liner brand we carry. He keeps a photo album on his phone of the worst fireboxes he’s pulled back from the brink. Ask him about the one in Bethesda with the three-foot squirrel nest. Actually, don’t get him started unless you have twenty minutes.

Dana R. – Service Coordinator

Dana is the voice you get when you call at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday in January and the wind is howling down a damaged cap. She has worked with Top Hat since 2015 and knows the Montgomery County map better than most delivery drivers. She books every sweep, schedules arrival windows, and works out the no-trip-charge calls for anywhere inside the county. Dana grew up in Silver Spring and has a running list of the best coffee spots near every job site we visit. If you call and Wendell is on a roof, it’s Dana making sure the next crew is headed your way with a real ETA.

Chris L. – Apprentice, Sweep and Fireplace Services

Chris is the youngest member of the crew and the one most likely to volunteer for the tight crawlspace jobs. He started in 2023 after five years in HVAC, so he understands airflow better than most. Wendell and Marcus are training him on everything from first-degree creosote brushing to cap and crown replacement. Chris recently completed his first full demo-to-install on an Olympia chimney cap. He shows up in uniform, on time, with the right ladder. When he’s not working, he volunteers at his fire station and runs the annual Turkey Chase in Bethesda.

One Standard, Every Job

We don’t have different levels of service for different ZIP codes. The same camera goes down every flue from Rockville to Silver Spring, and the same plain-English verdict comes back up. Every brush, every liner, every cap goes in the same way, whether it’s a $200 sweep or a $7,000 rebuild. The 90-Day Done Right Promise follows every single job. One call brings Wendell back. No arguing. No fine print. Wendell puts his name on the work because he knows he’ll see you at the farmers market, and he’d rather shake your hand than cross the street.

Written by Wendell Pike, Owner at Top Hat Chimney, serving Rockville, MD and surrounding Montgomery County since 1999.