What Bethesda Homeowners Say About Top Hat Chimney
Reviews tell you what a company is actually like after the truck pulls away. We’ve been knocking on doors in Bethesda since 1999, and Wendell Pike has built this business one chimney at a time, mostly by doing what he said he’d do and showing up when he said he would. The comments below come from neighbors in Chevy Chase, Glen Echo, Somerset, and downtown Bethesda who called us for a sweep, a repair, or a second opinion. Nothing here is cherry-picked to make us look good. It’s just what people tell us after we leave, and we’d rather you read it in their words than ours. If you want to ask any of these folks about us, we’ll happily connect you.
Recent Reviews
“Wendell and his crew swept our fireplace in Bethesda last October, and the camera showed a first-degree creosote buildup that was exactly what he described before he even went up the ladder. Two days later we got a written report with the footage. No upsell, no drama. It was just clean.”
Michelle W. - Chevy Chase, MD
“I called at 9:30 on a Sunday night because I smelled smoke backing into the house, and a real person picked up on the second ring. Wendell talked me through what I was seeing and had someone at my place in Somerset by lunchtime. The flue cap was rusted through, and they replaced it with an Olympia cap before the rain hit that week.”
Andres D. - Somerset, MD
“We’d been putting off a sweep for three years because the last company we used in Bethesda left soot all over our living room rug. Top Hat came in, laid down drop cloths, vacuumed the firebox, and the brush never touched a thing that wasn’t inside the flue. I watched the whole time. Wendell doesn’t mind you watching.”
Steve Q. - Glen Echo, MD
“When the home inspector flagged a cracked flue tile before we closed on our house, the seller hired Top Hat for a second opinion. Wendell sent us the camera footage and told us the crack was in a smoke chamber panel, not the liner itself. That one sentence saved us about $3,400. He could have easily recommended a full rebuild and we wouldn’t have known the difference.”
Eric N. - Bethesda, MD
“Michelle from Top Hat came out and swept our chimney two weeks before our daughter’s wedding, and she found a squirrel nest jammed about four feet down from the crown. She pulled it out, showed it to me in a garbage bag, and then swept everything clean. We didn’t have to worry about smoke backing up in front of forty guests. The arrival window they gave me was 8 to 10, and she rang the doorbell at 8:07.”
Andres D. - Bethesda, MD
“Wendell came out to look at our fireplace because we thought we needed a new liner. He ran the camera through the flue, sat down with me at the kitchen table, and showed me the footage on his tablet. The liner was fine. We just had a cold air draft from a missing damper cap, and he fixed it with a Famco damper in about an hour. The charge was $90. He could have quoted me $4,000 and I’d have paid it because I didn’t know any better.”
Steve Q. - Bethesda, MD
Why Customers Trust Us
Every review above comes back to the same things. The camera footage. The plain-talk explanation. The fact that the number you hear on the phone is the number on the invoice. Wendell Pike puts his name on the work and then runs into you at the farmer’s market on Saturday, so there’s no hiding behind a script or a call center. If something’s wrong after we leave, the 90-Day Done Right Promise means one call brings the crew back at no charge. If you have a written estimate from another company, we’ll give you a free second opinion on it. If your repair is over $200, you get $40 off. Seniors and veterans always save 10%. And if you’re inside the county, there’s no trip charge. We answer the phone around the clock, and it’s often Wendell himself picking up. If you’re in Bethesda and you want a sweep, a repair, or just an honest answer about whether your chimney can wait another season, call (240) 618-3233. We’ll tell you what we see, not what we want to sell you.
Written by Wendell Pike, Owner at Top Hat Chimney, serving Bethesda since 1999.