Fire basket - general questions!

[glittercat]

Hi

We recently bought a 1930's house - the back room had an old 70's brick firesurround and a hole where a gas fire had been taken out. We had a bulder knock it back to original fireplace with plans to get a log burner in but moneys ran out! So thought I'd just use a fire basket for now
I had the chimeny swept, was all fine but he thought I might have problems with a fire basket as he thought the smoke might come back into the room as they are quite low. He suggested a couple of bricks underneath to lift it up a bit (haven't got the fire basket yet)
Do the bricks need to be fire bricks or can I just use any?
Also (this seems like a silly question) but is it fine to just put the fire basket into the opening?
Hope that makes sense - ill upload a picture in a bit x

We have a fire basket in our 1924 house. It is a square iron sort with a solid back, sort of mock medieval! It works fine with smokeless fuel.
Very occasionally a little smoke blows back when it's just lit, no big problem, opening a window for a few mins clears it.

Fire bricks would be better but you can use normal bricks. The difference being that the normal bricks will crack, and need replacing.

We burn wood all winter for heat, we get through 4 chords a year.

Fire basket will be ok probably better for coal or hard wood like oak.

It might be fine as it is if you have a strong draw on your chimney. Light a good lot of kindling to get some warm air up there to clear the cold damp air as it is the weight of that which pushes smoke back into the room.
You just have to try it and see what works with your particular chimney.

Have you had the chimney smoke checked? There may be leaks higher up.