Howdy all, this is the forge set I have been using for a while now. It has served me well, but after reading a few posts in this area, I wondered if it could be upgraded in simple ways. I read somebody saying that hard bricks as a floor suck up more heat than necessary. Is this true? It takes a bit to heat up, but after a bit, I can achieve a strong yellow forging heat. The ribbon burner itself works well, and the forge is currently all loose stacked hard fire bricks. Are there any problems that you see in this design? If so, please let me know. The second picture is when the roof and burner has been removed.
Thanks,

Asa.

Hard fire bricks can handle the heat, but they are not very insulating.  That translates into more fuel to get the forge up to heat as well as more fuel to maintain temperature.  

Insulating fire bricks can handle the heat and keep more of it in your forge, but are comparatively fragile - and significantly more expensive.

Also, a coating such as Plistex or Metrikote can help reflect more heat back into the forge.

The bottom line is that if you are happy with your results and don't feel that the extra fuel used is a problem then you may not need to do anything.  Upgrading to insulating fire bricks will cost you more money up front, but should save you money in the long run.  Likewise, the surface coatings I mentioned do cost a little bit up front, but may increase the temperature you can maintain as well as save a bit of fuel over time.

I'm personally not a fan of a loose brick forge, probably because I feel I'll eventually bump into it hard enough to be a problem. Just an angle iron framework held together with some all thread rod would be enough containment.

Thank you for the insight! I don't mind having a loose brick forge, because I can change around the size/shape. If I were to get a surface coating, I assume I would need to make the forge rigid so as to not break the coating? I think I would prefer surface coating over all new soft bricks, because of how fragile the soft bricks are.

Asa 

Surface coating is designed to increase the amount of infrared being reflected back into the forge, not to provide any kind of structure. You could easily coat the individual bricks (at least on the surfaces that face into the forge chamber) so that you can move them around as needed.