Dear Jim: We had many trees taken down due to ash borers, so I plan to use my fireplace more this fall and winter. I have never had much luck building fires without smoking up the room. Do you have ...

Q. Tim, I really need your help. I just moved into my new home and have a smoking full masonry fireplace. It’s 55 inches wide and has an arched opening that’s 33.5 inches at the peak of the arch. It ...

Every winter, I get quite a few emails from readers who suffer from smoky fireplaces. Just a month ago, one of my amateur radio friends reached out to me with the same problem. After asking him some ...

Q: I just moved into my new home and it has a full masonry fireplace. It’s 55 inches wide and has an arched opening that’s 33.5 inches at its peak. It looks like regular brick mortar was used with the ...

Classic brick-and-mortar fireplaces aren't exactly hot these days, according to Joe LaVecchia of New Jersey's Abbey Hart Brick & Stone. "We used to sell a million firebricks a year in the 1970s," he ...