How Top Hat Chimney Was Born in Torrington
The first time I climbed up on a roof in Torrington, it was October, and the leaves on the maples up on Highland Lake Road had gone that color they get right before they let go. I wasn’t wearing a top hat yet. I was wearing a cheap baseball cap and carrying a chimney brush a retired sweep from Winsted had sold me, mostly because he felt sorry for me. I didn’t know anything. I knew I liked showing up when I said I would, and I knew people were tired of companies that didn’t.
What we kept seeing, back when this whole thing started in 1999, was the same story. A homeowner would call a company about a chimney that was smoking. They’d get quoted one thing, then someone would show up and find four thousand dollars worth of “emergency” masonry. It was fear, dressed up as service. I remember standing in a kitchen in Northwest Harwinton looking at an invoice a homeowner had been handed for lining they didn’t need, and thinking, somebody has to do this straight. So we did. We promised then what we still promise now: we clean the chimney, we show you the camera, and we tell you the truth. Even when the truth is, this one’s fine, save your money. That habit has kept our oldest customers with us since the start.
Wendell Pike’s Personal Connection to the Chimney Cleaning Trade
I didn’t grow up planning to be the guy in the top hat. But I did grow up in a house with a wood stove, the kind of house where you learned young that if the fire acted wrong, something was wrong. I remember my father standing in front of the stove in January, listening to it. Listening to a stove is a real thing. A clean, warm chimney has a sound to it, a steady pull. A cold one, a clogged one, sounds like a room holding its breath.
I got into this trade because I was curious about why a chimney works when it works. Then I got to know what it feels like to fix one that hasn’t worked in years. There’s a moment, after you’ve pulled a half-dozen nests out of a flue in Harwinton or chipped through a creosote glaze that looked like black glass, when you get the fire going again and the smoke moves up and out the way it’s supposed to. The room changes. The smell changes. You can feel the house breathe. That’s the part I keep coming back for.
What gets me out of bed is the same thing that got me into this. A chimney is a simple thing that can go quietly wrong for years before anyone notices. And when I find something on that camera that needs a second look, I want to be the person in the room who can explain it without making a homeowner feel cornered. More than a decade of sweeping the same chimneys in Torrington, Canton, and New Hartford has taught me more than any classroom ever could. You learn that chimneys have personalities. Some hold creosote in certain bends after certain kinds of weather. Some pull better after a heavy rain. Once a year, burn or no burn. Chimneys break in the off-season too, and by the time burning season hits, the sweep who knows his route is the one you want on your roof. If I weren’t doing this, I think I’d still be doing something with my hands, and I’d still be outside. But I’d miss the moment the house starts breathing again. That part never gets old.
Meet Wendell Pike - The Person Behind Every Job
I’m Wendell Pike, Owner & Founder of the Torrington branch of Top Hat Chimney. The brand has been around since 1999, and the standards that come with it were built over decades of sweeps and inspections. I trained under the people who care about this trade the way a good mechanic cares about an engine, and I’ve spent my career since then proving that a local company can be straight-dealing and still stay in business.
What makes me different from a franchise technician is simple. I live twenty minutes away from most of the homes I work on. I answer the phone. I put my name on the work. The truck carries my name, not a number. And if I tell you it’s time to call someone, you’ll know exactly why, because the camera doesn’t lie. I’m also the kind of person who won’t recommend work that can safely wait, even when that costs me a job. That’s not good salesmanship, but it’s good chimney sweeping. It’s how my grandfathers would have done it, and it’s how this business runs. You’re not a work order to me. You’re a neighbor whose chimney I know.
Our Promise to Torrington Homeowners
We don’t like surprise pricing, and we don’t think you do either. So we give you a written estimate before we start, and the price on that paper is the price, full stop. No add-ons, no “found this once we opened it up.” If we do find something on the camera, we show it to you before we say a word about cost.
We use quality parts when a repair is needed. That means brands like DuraFlex for lining and HeatShield for resurfacing, names that last years longer than the cheapest option. And we stand behind every job we do. Wendell Pike publishes his name, his address and his license number, and answers his own phone. Ninety days in writing on every chimneys job, and one call brings him back. That’s not a line we wrote for the website. It’s how we’ve kept customers in Torrington since the first season.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed: Every pro working under the Top Hat name is required to hold the license their state requires. Why it matters: licensing requires training, testing, and a professional standing that any homeowner can verify before someone sets foot in their home.
- Insured & bonded: We carry insurance and bonding so that if something goes wrong on a job, you’re protected. Why it matters: someone working on your roof or inside your flue should never leave you holding the bag. This is a baseline, not a selling point.
- Years of local experience: We’ve worked in Torrington, Winchester, Litchfield, Winsted, and the surrounding towns long enough to know these chimneys before we climb up to them. Why it matters: a sweep who knows the houses in your neighborhood knows what to expect and where problems hide.
- Strong local reputation: Ask anyone on your street. We’ve built our name the old way, one clean chimney at a time, and people around here know the top hat. Why it matters: in a small town, reputation isn’t marketing. It’s who you are.
None of these credentials mean anything if the person on your roof doesn’t honor them. We do.
Rooted in Torrington
We’re not a call center three states away. We live in Torrington, we work in Torrington, and we run into you at the hardware store on a Saturday. The top hat isn’t just a logo. It’s the oldest good-luck figure in the trade, and Wendell still wears one to the door. That’s not a gimmick. In a county where a handshake still means something, it’s the only kind of advertising that matters.
Why We Keep Sweeping
Your flue doesn’t care how the fire looks. It cares how it breathes. First-degree creosote is a brush job. Third-degree is a glaze, catch it early. We’d rather keep you for twenty years than win one big ticket, because twenty years means we’ve done something right. The L.O.C.A.L. code isn’t a slogan. It’s how we run the company.
- Local roots: an address in this county, not a distant call center.
- On time: the window we give you is the window, and we call if it slips.
- Community first: we hire here, we buy here, we sponsor the team here.
- Accountable: the owner answers the phone and puts his name on the work.
- Loyal: we would rather keep you for twenty years than win one big ticket.
If you haven’t had your chimney looked at this year, or if it’s been a few years, give us a call at (860) 744-2656. Even if the answer is that you don’t need us yet, we’ll tell you that plainly.
Written by Wendell Pike, Owner at Top Hat Chimney, serving Torrington since 1999.