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.
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AfterFast, Reliable Chimney Cap & Crown Across Simsbury
If your chimney cap is rusted through or your crown is spalling, you want a straight answer and a real fix, not a sales pitch. A chimney cap replacement in Simsbury typically runs $385-$675 for a standard stainless cap on a single flue, while crown repair runs $450-$900 depending on the size of the stack and the condition of the mortar. Multi-flue caps on older center-chimney colonials cost more, usually $800-$1,600. Call (860) 743-7743 and Wendell or one of his crew will come out, put eyes on it, and quote you a number before a single tool comes off the truck.
We’ve been up and down Hopmeadow Street, through Weatogue, Tariffville, and West Simsbury enough times to know exactly what we’re looking at before we set foot on the roof. Older Simsbury chimneys are their own animal. We treat them that way.
Why Top Hat Chimney Is Simsbury’s Preferred Chimney Cap & Crown Company
Wendell Pike started Top Hat Chimney in 1999, and he has been inside more chimneys in the Farmington Valley than he can count. We are locally owned and owner-operated. When you call, a live person answers, around the clock, and it may well be Wendell himself picking up. The number you hear on the phone is the number on the invoice. No bait, no switch.
Simsbury homeowners keep calling us back because we do not recommend work you cannot verify. Every diagnosis comes with camera footage and a plain-English verdict. Every job is backed by the 90-Day Done Right Promise in writing. If it is not done right, one call brings the crew back at no additional cost.
We also show up when we say we will. Background-checked, uniformed, with a real arrival window, and a phone call if we are slipping. Ask anyone on your street. There is a reason we keep running into the same faces at the transfer station on Saturday.
We serve Simsbury directly. Dispatch is coordinated from the Hartford office, but the crew that rolls up to your house is ours, trained by Wendell, and familiar with the chimneys along Route 10 and the ridgelines east of Bushy Hill.
Our Chimney Cap & Crown Services in Simsbury
Cap Installation
A missing or undersized cap on an uncovered flue means rain, snow, and wet leaves dropping straight into the smoke chamber. In Simsbury, where the town averages over 40 inches of snow a year and cold air drains into the Farmington River valley, an uncapped flue stays damp for months. We install stainless and copper caps sized to the flue, not just whatever is on the truck. Standard single-flue cap installation in Simsbury runs $385-$675. Multi-flue caps on large center-chimney stacks start around $800.
Cap Replacement
Rusted-through caps are common on 1970s and 1980s colonials around the Flamig Farm Road and Stratton Brook areas. The galvanized steel caps installed when those houses were built have a lifespan of about 15 to 20 years. Once water gets under the mesh, the cap is done. We replace caps with stainless steel or copper, and we will tell you honestly if the cap can wait another season or if it is actively letting water into the flue. Typical cap replacement in Simsbury runs $425-$700.
Crown Repair
This is where Simsbury’s older homes get into trouble. Hand-laid brick and fieldstone chimneys from the 1700s and 1800s were built without a drip edge. Water runs straight down the face of the stack, freezes, thaws, and pops the mortar. Add river moisture from the Farmington valley floor and you have a recipe for spalling that repeats every spring. We rebuild crowns with a proper overhang and drip edge, using mortar mixed for freeze-thaw cycling. Crown repair in Simsbury runs $450-$900. A full rebuild on a large shared stack runs higher.
Crown Coating
When the crown has hairline cracks but no structural spalling yet, a flexible crown coating can buy years of protection. We use Gelco and HeatShield products for crown sealing. A coating job in Simsbury runs $225-$450. If the crown is already spalling, coating is a waste of your money, and we will tell you that to your face. Nothing we recommend is based on anything but what the camera shows.
Trusted Brands We Service in Simsbury
We install and service caps and crowns from Copperfield, DuraFlex, and HeatShield. These are the brands we trust because they hold up through Connecticut freeze-thaw cycles. We keep common cap sizes and crown materials stocked locally, so a standard cap replacement on a Simsbury chimney usually happens in one visit. If you need a custom copper cap for an unusual flue layout, we measure it, order it, and return to install it, usually inside two weeks.
Common Chimney Cap & Crown Problems We See in Simsbury Homes
- Water running down the face of the stack. Simsbury’s antique colonials and Federals along Hopmeadow Street were built without drip edges on their crowns. Water clings to the masonry, freezes at night, and spalls the mortar by spring. The cap is fine; the crown is the problem. We see this weekly.
- Rusted caps on 1960s-1990s tract colonials. The original caps on homes in the Bushy Hill Road and Stratton Brook corridors are decades past their useful life. Rusted mesh lets rain and snow into the flue, and animals follow. A replacement cap here is quick work.
- Cross-drafting on shared multi-flue stacks. Simsbury’s original center-chimney colonials often vent multiple hearths and an old cookstove through one stack. Without properly sized caps and intact crowns, draft from one flue pulls smoke and carbon monoxide into the adjacent flue. This is a condition newer-market chimney techs rarely see, and it is dangerous when they miss it.
- Acidic slurry inside the smoke chamber. When a cap is missing or undersized on an antique chimney, rain and snow mix with creosote inside the flue. The result is an acidic slurry that eats mortar joints from the inside. By the time you smell it, the damage is done.
Pricing for Chimney Cap & Crown in Simsbury, CT
Here is what we quote in Simsbury, honestly and up front:
- Standard single-flue cap installation: $385-$675
- Cap replacement (stainless or copper): $425-$700
- Crown repair (small to medium stack): $450-$900
- Crown coating (hairline cracks only): $225-$450
- Multi-flue cap, custom fabricated: $800-$1,600
- Full crown rebuild on a large shared stack: $900-$1,800
What moves the number: the height and pitch of your roof, the size of the stack, whether you have one flue or five, and whether the crown needs patching or full removal and re-pour. We stand behind our estimate. Free second opinion on any competing written estimate, no trip charge for calls inside the county, and 10% off always for seniors and veterans. Call (860) 743-7743 and we will give you a number before we touch anything.
We Also Serve Cities Near Simsbury
Top Hat Chimney serves all of the Farmington Valley. If you are in Collinsville, Avon, Farmington, or West Hartford, we run the same honest pricing and the same 90-Day Done Right Promise. The antique center-chimney work we do in Simsbury gives us an edge on the old stacks in those towns too.
Serving Simsbury, CT - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Simsbury 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 Simsbury
You can cap individual unused flues if the crown is intact and the flues are properly separated. But on a shared masonry stack, capping one flue while others are in use can actually worsen cross-drafting if the cap dimensions are off. We have seen this exact condition on 1700s colonials near Hopmeadow Street, where three flues share one stack and draft pulls between them. We will camera the whole stack and size the cap or caps to stop the cross-draft, not just cover the holes. Call (860) 743-7743 and we will give you a straight answer.
Because the original crown was built without a drip edge, and any patch that does not add one will fail the same way. Water runs down the face of the stack, freezes in the mortar, and pops it loose. Simsbury’s valley cold drains and 40-plus inches of annual snow make this worse here than in towns on higher ground. A proper fix means rebuilding the crown with an overhang that sheds water away from the stack. Patching over spalled mortar buys you a year or two at most. We will show you the camera footage so you can decide.
If the cap is a one-piece multi-flue unit, the rusted section cannot be replaced alone. The whole cap comes off and a new one is sized to the full stack. If you have individual caps on separate flues, then yes, we can replace just the failed one. On older Simsbury colonials with shared stacks, we often find a mix of both, and the fix is a custom cap that covers the entire crown. Copperfield fabricates those to our measurements. We will tell you which situation you have before we quote it.
A hairline crack with no spalling is exactly what a flexible crown coating is designed for. We use Gelco crown sealant and in many cases it buys five to seven years of protection. The catch is that it must be applied to a clean, dry crown before the crack widens. If you wait until the mortar starts flaking, coating is wasted money. A coating job in Simsbury runs $225-$450. A full rebuild runs more. We would rather coat a crown now than rebuild one in three years, and the camera will tell us which path you are on.
Probably, yes. A gas furnace vents at a much lower temperature than a wood stove, and the two flues sharing one stack can pull against each other. The old clay tile liner may also be cracked from decades of oil heat and freeze-thaw cycling. At a minimum, we want to camera the flues and confirm the crown is shedding water correctly. In many older Simsbury homes, the right fix is a DuraFlex liner for the gas flue and a properly sized multi-flue cap that keeps the two drafts separate. Call us at (860) 743-7743 and we will walk you through what the camera shows.
Written by Wendell Pike, Owner at Top Hat Chimney, serving Simsbury and the Farmington Valley since 1999.