Am very happy that several "old fashioned" politicians did not win yesterday. I hope that Collins will offer a fresh perspective and help turn Erie County around. At least he'll get people talking and that alone will be a good thing.

Am also glad that the political ad season is over. Maybe the radio is safe to turn on again on my ride home.

Last year our fireplace died... partly due to bad construction and partly due to the October storm that trashed my roof... last winter was so depressing without a fireplace. So, we saved and put in a gas insert... and we love it. We've had a fire every evening since it was installed. The only thing I'm missing is the crackling of the wood, but it is far more efficient at heating our living room than the old wood burning one was. And, if we lose power, it will still light (gas pilot) and we can plug our generator into the blower to push heat out. Much happier

OK, lots of qustions about my new fireplace. So here's the info:

We used State Air Heating, Cooling and Fireplaces on Transit Rd in Williamsville. They carry the Napoleon inserts. We bought the smallest direct vent fireplace that they offered. It uses gas, so the pilot light is always on and there is always some heat radiating from the glass. We will probably get a screen to keep little ones from touching the warm glass when we have visitors. In the summer we'll turn off the pilot.

The way that an insert works is that a small hole is put into the wall of the house for the vent (no chimmney needed) and the insert is a box set inside the house. It is placed into a cabinet. We put ours in a corner, so it filled up an empty spot. It is also possible to put the entire insert into the wall to have it be flat on the wall, but I didn't want to do that much construction, pay that much money, or limit the options of a future homeowner if they don't like where we put this fireplace.

You can see more details here at the Napoleon website. The picture at the top is a corner cabinet.

The website does show electric fireplaces for apartments, but I never looked at those!