For many homeowners, fireplaces have become the nice china of home features: dusted off only for special occasions. Although attractive, they are messy to operate, and that homey glow they produce ...

Chauncey grew up on a farm in rural northern California. At 18 he ran away and saw the world with a backpack and a credit card, discovering that the true value of any point or mile is the experience ...

Every house Susan Moch and her husband, Roland Poirier, have owned during their 40 years of marriage has had a fireplace. But fireplaces are notorious for wasting energy because the heat escapes ...

WHEN JACK LIEBERUM bought his “eccentric” old Berkeley house, he inherited four wood-burning fireplaces. “I never expected to convert all of them to gas,” Lieberum says. “I had my trusty ax and I didn ...

Dear EarthTalk: It is starting to get colder and I’m eager to try out the fireplace in our new home, but we don't want to create health or environmental problems. Are there materials that would be ...