subject: Fire Surrounds And Fire Baskets Safety And Design In One Package [print this page] The open fire is one of the most comforting and beautiful sights in a modern home. It can also be one of the most dangerous. Modern fire surrounds and fire baskets ensure that an open fire is contained, easy to control and that the surrounding fabric of your house is protected from the heat.
Fire baskets make sure that burning embers and logs cannot spill out of the grate and into the hearth. They also allow an even flow of oxygen to circulate underneath the fire, making it easier to light and better to burn.
Fire surrounds dont just contain the flames and the materials that you are burning. They also keep the heat off the floor of your hearth, ensuring that the base materials in the floor and back of the grate remain clean and unwarped. Once your fire has died out, cleaning the grate is easy you sweep the cold ash from underneath the fire basket.
Fire baskets and fire surrounds are available in a range of beautiful designs and materials. You can get a basket or surround to complement any design scheme, from ornate and classical to severely modern. A stone bowl fire basket, for example, looks wonderful in a modern minimalist room and can be fit in any fireplace to make a stunning central feature of the dancing flames.
Match the material that your fire baskets or fire surrounds are made of, with the material you have chosen to act as a fire backing. A fire back protects the brickwork in your chimney or flue from heat and soot and reflects the heat of flames back out into your room. By matching your fire surround with the fire back, you create a uniform theme and feel to the fireplace, which can in turn be bled out into some of the fixtures and fitments of your room.
For example if you use brushed iron fire baskets or fire surrounds, you can back the fire with cast iron in a darker colour. The range of hues deepens the whole fireplace, creating a centrepiece to the room that is as much a work of art as an original oil painting. And if you then match, say, the ends of your curtain rails in a similar shade of iron to the fire basket, your whole room starts to feel unified with highlights from the fire reaching out to the little details throughout.
Some fire baskets and fire surrounds include a drawer underneath, into which the ashes fall as the fire dies out. You can simply leave the dead fire overnight and remove the drawer in the morning, making cleaning and re-laying your fire a simple daily task. With so many styles to choose from, too, theres something for every taste.
