Level 1 sweep and inspection to the NFPA 211 annual standard - flue, crown, cap, and flashing checked and photographed
Chimney sweep logs do not sweep chimneys. They loosen some creosote - which then falls where a brush and vacuum still have to collect it.
Before
After
Before
After
Before
AfterFast, Reliable Chimney Cap & Crown Across Westbury
A Chimney Repair - Westbury job for a cap and crown typically runs $300-$800 for a standard crown, and $175-$450 for a cap replacement, including parts and labor. Most calls in Westbury come from mid-century homes where the original clay tile flue no longer matches the heating system, and the crown has been quietly spalling for years. If you see water stains near the ceiling or hear animals on the roof, call Top Hat Chimney at (516) 963-1068 and Wendell will have an answer before he hangs up.
We’ve worked the streets off Post Avenue, Old Country Road, and throughout the Village of Westbury long enough to know what those 1950s ranches and Cape Cods are hiding. The crown on your chimney was poured when Eisenhower was in office. None of this is a mystery to us.
Why Top Hat Chimney Is Westbury’s Preferred Chimney Cap & Crown Company
Wendell Pike founded Top Hat Chimney in 1999, and he still shows up on Westbury rooftops himself. That’s the difference. You’re not getting a rotating crew from a franchise that bought a phone number last year. You’re getting the same man who has pulled caps off split-levels near Eisenhower Park and sealed crowns on ranches off Jericho Turnpike. When you call (516) 963-1068, a live person answers. Around the clock. It might be Wendell himself, and if he’s on a roof he’ll call you back before the day ends.
Westbury homeowners call us because the national outfits quote one price on the phone and another at the door. That doesn’t happen here. You get a number before a single tool comes off the truck, and that’s the number on the invoice. Every job carries the 90-Day Done Right Promise in writing. If it’s not right, one call brings us back at no charge. Ask anyone on your street. Someone’s used us.
Our crew is background-checked and uniformed. You’ll get a real arrival window, and we call if it slips. We’ve been at this for over 29 years, and the reason Westbury keeps calling is simple: Wendell puts his name and license number on the work, and he runs into you again on Saturday.
Our Chimney Cap & Crown Services in Westbury
Here’s what we handle most often through Westbury Chimney Cleaning & Sweep visits, and what each job actually involves. The details matter because the wrong fix on one of these 60-to-80-year-old stacks will show up again in two winters.
Cap Installation
An uncapped flue on a Westbury split-level is an open invitation to raccoons, squirrels, and every Nor’easter that rolls in from the Atlantic. We install stainless steel and copper caps sized to the flue, not by guesswork. For a 1950s Cape Cod with a dormant oil flue, the right cap also needs to ventilate so condensation doesn’t eat the clay from inside. That’s standard for us on any Westbury install.
Cap Replacement
The original caps on most Westbury ranches were galvanized steel, and galvanized steel has a working life of about ten years before rust takes it. If your cap is 15 years old and you can see rust from the ground, it’s time. We pulled a rusted 8-inch Famco cap off a 1957 ranch on a dead-end street off Post Avenue last spring. The homeowner converted to gas in 2008 without relining. We’ll come back to that story. Replacement is usually a same-visit job.
Crown Repair
This is the big one in Westbury. Flat crowns on ranch-style chimneys catch every freeze-thaw cycle the Atlantic moisture delivers, and after 70 years the mortar spalls away until the crown looks like a stale donut. We cut out the damaged material, build form edges where the geometry is shot, and pour a proper sloped crown that sheds water. On most Westbury homes, this runs $500-$800 and prevents the water intrusion that destroys smoke chambers.
Crown Coating
When the crown is solid but porous, we don’t tear it out. We clean it, fill minor cracks, and seal it with Gelco crown coat, which flexes through temperature swings instead of cracking like a straight mortar patch. On a Westbury chimney with good bones, this is a $300-$450 job that buys another decade.
Multi-Flue Cap
Many Westbury Cape Cods have two flues side by side, one for the furnace and one for a fireplace that hasn’t been lit since the Nixon administration, which is why our Fireplace Services in Westbury include custom solutions. A multi-flue cap covers both while respecting each one’s draft and ventilation needs. If one flue is dormant and has been sealed, the cap design changes. We measure, fabricate, and install to the actual chimney.
Custom Cap
Odd flue sizes, unusual crown footprints, patched brickwork that changed the opening dimensions. If stock caps don’t fit properly, we build a custom cap. Westbury’s housing stock is consistent but every chimney has seen decades of repairs, and the standard 8-by-8 or 8-by-13 isn’t always what’s there now.
What happens when you call
- 1
A real person answersNo phone trees - you reach a local pro.
- 2
You get an upfront price rangeHonest numbers before anyone is dispatched.
- 3
A background-checked tech heads outLicensed & insured, dispatched right away.
- 4
You approve before work beginsNothing starts until you say go.
Trusted Brands We Service in Westbury
We install and service caps and crowns from Famco, Olympia Chimney, and HeatShield. These are the brands built for Northeast winters, not the pot-metal stuff on the shelf at the big-box store. Because we work Westbury and the surrounding Nassau County towns constantly, we keep common cap sizes and crown mix on the truck. That means fewer return trips and less waiting when a job turns out bigger than the phone call suggested.
Why Westbury’s Oil-to-Gas Conversions Keep Us Busy
Here’s what most cap-and-crown pages won’t tell you, and it’s the single most common call we run in Westbury. The neighborhood’s 1945-1965 Cape Cods, ranches, and split-levels were built with clay tile flues sized for oil-fired boilers. Oil exhaust runs hot and needs a wider flue. Natural gas burns cooler and produces more acidic condensate, and a modern gas appliance needs a narrower flue to draft correctly.
When Nassau County homeowners converted from oil to gas in the 2000s and 2010s, most never touched the chimney. The original clay tile stayed in place. Now the flue is the wrong diameter. It’s oversized for gas draft, which means the appliance can’t establish proper draw. Exhaust hangs in the flue, condenses, and eats the clay joints. Moisture works its way up and out through the crown. The cap rusts from underneath. The chimney looks fine from the street, but it’s failing from the inside.
This surfaces most visibly during real-estate transactions. A home inspection on a Westbury property will flag the mismatch, and suddenly there’s a chimney call a week before closing. We handle those. We know what the inspector flagged before you finish reading the report.
Common Chimney Cap & Crown Problems We See in Westbury Homes
- Freeze-thaw crown spalling. Westbury sits roughly 5-7 miles from the South Shore, and Atlantic moisture cycles through the masonry all winter. Flat crowns on ranch chimneys crack open, Nor’easter snowmelt floods the smoke chamber, and the damper rusts solid. Crown repair stops this at the source.
- Oversized clay flues after oil-to-gas conversion. The flue is now the wrong diameter for the gas appliance, so draft fails and condensate attacks the cap and crown from below. The right fix often combines a properly sized liner with a cap designed for the actual flue condition.
- Rusting galvanized originals. The caps installed in the 1950s and 1960s were never meant to last this long. When rust perforates the cap, water runs straight down the flue and pools on the smoke shelf. A stainless or copper replacement solves it.
- Animal nests in dormant flues. Vaccant oil-era flues on Westbury homes become raccoon and squirrel nesting sites. Debris blocks the flue, traps moisture against the crown, and accelerates spalling. A properly fitted cap with screening ends it.
On that dead-end street off Post Avenue, the homeowner’s 1957 ranch had the original clay flue still in place after a 2008 gas conversion. Chronic backdrafting bothered them for years. We installed a custom multi-flue cap over both the active gas flue and a sealed-off dormant flue, then sealed the spalled crown with Gelco to stop the moisture eating the brick. Six months later, the homeowner called us back for a clean Level 1 inspection before listing the house. It passed.
Pricing for Chimney Cap & Crown in Westbury, NY
Here are the honest numbers for Westbury’s market. A standard cap replacement runs $175-$450 depending on flue size and the cap material. Crown repair, which is the big job on these older ranches, runs $500-$800 when we’re cutting out spalled material and re-forming the crown. Crown coating over a sound base is $300-$450. A custom multi-flue cap runs $450-$900 because it’s measured and built for your specific chimney.
What moves the price is the condition we find, not what we quote on the phone. You’ll have a firm number before we start. If you already have a written estimate from another company, bring it. We’ll give you a free second opinion, and if we can’t beat it, we’ll tell you that too. Call (516) 963-1068 for a free estimate, and ask about $40 off any repair over $200, plus 10% off always for seniors and veterans.
We Also Serve Cities Near Westbury
Beyond Westbury, Mr. Pike and the crew handle Chimney Cap & Crown work across the surrounding Nassau County communities. That includes Carle Place, Hempstead, Mineola, and Williston Park. If you’re a few minutes down Old Country Road, you’re still in our service area, and the same pricing and the same 90-Day Done Right Promise apply.
Serving Westbury, NY - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Westbury area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs - Chimney Cap & Crown in Westbury
Freeze-thaw cycling is doing it. Westbury’s Atlantic moisture soaks into the mortar, water freezes and expands overnight, and the crown spalls a little more each season. It doesn’t matter that the fireplace is cold. The crown is exposed to weather 365 days a year. Repairing and sealing the crown is the fix, not patching it every spring. Call (516) 963-1068 and we’ll tell you if it’s a repour or a coating job based on what’s actually there.
Yes. The original clay flue is now oversized for the gas appliance, which causes draft failure and acidic condensate. That condensate attacks the cap from underneath and rots the mortar joints from inside. What you’re seeing as a cap problem is often an oil-to-gas mismatch working its way up. We’ll scope the flue, show you the footage, and tell you plainly if the cap needs to change or the liner needs addressing first.
Only if both flues are active and the crown is in good enough shape to accept a standard multi-flue cap. On many 1950s Cape Cods in Westbury, one flue is dormant or has been sealed off, and a stock cap will trap moisture against the crown or block ventilation to the dormant flue. We measure both openings and build the cap to the actual chimney. Standard parts don’t fit every stack around here.
It’s usually both. The cracked crown is letting water into the masonry, and if the cap is old galvanized steel, it’s funneling additional water straight down the flue. The ceiling stain means water has already traveled through the smoke chamber and into the structure. We’ll inspect both, show you camera footage of the path, and fix the crown and cap as one job. Don’t wait on this one. It only gets more expensive.
We can swap the cap in one visit, but we’ll always look down the flue while we’re up there. The camera footage and a plain-English verdict, every time, no exceptions. If the cap rusted out, something else is often happening inside the flue, especially on oil-to-gas conversion homes in Westbury. The inspection doesn’t add cost to the cap replacement. It adds honesty.
Call Top Hat Chimney for Your Westbury Chimney Cap & Crown
If you live in Westbury and your crown is spalling, your cap is rusted, or you’ve got a 1950s chimney that hasn’t been right since the gas conversion, call (516) 963-1068. We’ll answer, we’ll quote you honestly, and we’ll show up when we say we will. Wendell’s name is on the work. He’ll run into you at the grocery store, and you’ll want to be able to wave.
Written by Wendell Pike, Owner at Top Hat Chimney, serving Westbury and Nassau County since 1999.