Wood fireplaces have been a part of our homes as long as we can remember. Their dual function – a part of classy interior decoration and a source of heat – has made them popular all over the world. Nowadays wood fireplaces are built both in apartments and in houses and the designs vary from one extreme to another, the only limitation is your imagination. Most traditional wood fireplaces are constructed of brick but that is not necessarily the material that has to be used.  Wood fireplaces have also come a long way concerning technical, safety and environmental matters. For example you can have your fireplace designed with glass doors and heat control; some fireplaces even are equipped with a cooking surface – a characteristic that can prove to be very useful in a power outage. In addition, much work has been done to carefully design the firebox so that it would create airflow around the wood so that it burns completely, resulting in very little ash and almost no polluting smoke released into our environment.