Meet the Team - Top Hat Chimney

Meet the Newark Team Behind Top Hat Chimney

Wendell started Top Hat Chimney in 1999 with one truck and a brush set that had seen better days. Twenty-nine years later, the trucks are newer but the idea hasn’t budged: send someone to the door who knows what they’re doing, treats the house like it matters, and doesn’t leave until the flue breathes right. The Newark crew is small on purpose. Everyone here has been with Wendell for years, not weeks, and when you book a sweep or a repair, the person who shows up is the person whose name is on this page. Ask anyone on your street.

Our People

Marcus T. – Lead Technician

Marcus has been running chimney jobs for Top Hat since 2011, and he can tell you the difference between first-degree creosote and a third-degree glaze just by running a hand along the flue wall. He is CSIA-certified and handles the liners, the rebuilds, and the repairs that other companies in Newark quote high because they’d rather not touch them. Before chimneys, Marcus did masonry restoration on older brick homes in the Ironbound, and that background shows when he matches a crown repair to the existing mortar instead of just patching it gray and hoping nobody looks twice. He is the guy Wendell sends when the job is complicated and the homeowner has questions. On weekends, Marcus coaches his daughter’s soccer team at Weequahic Park.

Denise R. – Senior Installer

Denise joined Top Hat in 2014 after six years installing wood stoves and fireplace inserts around Essex and Union counties. She is NFI-certified and handles most of the DuraFlex and HeatShield liner installations out of the Newark yard, along with cap and crown work on taller homes where the roof pitch keeps other crews in the truck. Denise is the one who will tell you straight if your fireplace can wait another season or if the spalling on the crown has reached the point where every rainstorm is doing damage you can’t see yet. She keeps her dog in the cab on light days, a retired greyhound named Biscuit, who has opinions about strangers but not about chimneys.

Lucia G. – Service Coordinator

Lucia is the voice on the phone, and she has been answering Top Hat’s line since 2015. A live person answers every call around the clock, and half the time that live person is Lucia, who knows the Essex County map well enough to tell you whether the no-trip-charge zone covers your block before she even pulls up the schedule. She handles the bookings, the arrival windows, and the paperwork that backs the 90-Day Done Right Promise, and if a truck is running late, Lucia is the one who calls before you have to wonder. Before Top Hat, she ran dispatch for a plumbing outfit in Belleville, so she has heard every version of “how soon can you get here” there is. She doesn’t mind. She’d rather you ask.

Tommy A. – Apprentice

Tommy is the newest name on the crew, two years in, and he came to chimneys the way most of them do: he answered an ad, showed up early, and stuck. He works alongside Marcus and Denise on sweeps and basic repairs, and he is the one hauling the brush rods up the ladder while someone with more years tells him what to look for at the tile joints and smoke shelf. Tommy grew up in the North Ward and went to Barringer High, and he will tell you the best thing about the job is that no two flues act the same. He is working toward his own certification, and Wendell has him learning the camera side of things because the footage and a plain-English verdict every time, no exceptions, means someone has to run the scope.

One Standard, Every Job

Whoever shows up at your door in Newark is held to the same standard Wendell set when the company started: upfront pricing before a single tool comes off the truck, background-checked and uniformed, and work that is backed in writing by the 90-Day Done Right Promise. Marcus, Denise, Tommy, and Lucia all know the rule. If it is not done right, one call brings Wendell back, and Wendell brings whoever needs to come with him. The number you hear on the phone is the number on the invoice, whether it is a simple sweep in Forest Hill or a full liner replacement in the Ironbound. That has not changed since 1999, and it is not changing now.

Written by Wendell Pike, Owner at Top Hat Chimney, serving Newark since 1999.