Firebricks - are they still used?

[garyo]

My old fireplace (open, wood burning) is lined in cream firebricks that measure approximately 50mm x 100mm x 150mm. The inside fireplace footprint measures something like 350mm deep and 1000mm wide, and it has metal firebasket in the middle.

I want to put an extra row/course of these around on top of the existing four/five courses because at the moment you can see around 50mm of soot when you're sat down on the sofa.

Can you still buy these, are they still used? Or do people just use giant sheets of 'vermiculite' nowadays? Google turns up very little, other than sets of stones that I think are designed to go inside steel log burning stoves.

Thanks

Gary

 

[hotrod]

Yes they're still used Gary and you can still buy them, try a good builders' merchant:-

http://www.cwberry.com/Inquiry_ProductDetails.aspx?ItemNumber=02230409

 

[catlad]

They sell them at the builders merchant that I use.