Each week, I receive emails from readers. They provide a window into the real problems and challenges you face with your homes. One man lives in an older property. It’s a grand home with a tall exterior brick chimney. He’s convinced the fireplace and chimney were afterthoughts and not original to the construction. He told me he builds quite a few blazing wood fires in the fireplace each winter. The embers and hot flue gases from at least 500 fires have traveled up this chimney. He thinks the fireplace was intended for just gas logs. After looking at his photos, I agree 100%. It would be somewhat easy to verify this theory by looking for a small black-iron gas pipe in the basement that terminates in or near the underside of the fireplace. Of course, that gas pipe may have been for a log lighter for a wood-burning fireplace, so you would have to look at how the chimney was constructed to make a final determination. Another clue to support the gas fireplace theory is the actual size of the chimney.…