Knew I'd find more in my files if I looked ..... "A Grundloch is what the word says-  it is a hole in the ground. Inthis case, however, it is a hole where the village residents could goto get some soil for their garden or for mud for the adobe/stuccoused for the houses. After it filled with water, it served as a localswimming hole. Frozen over in winter time."  From   Michael Stamm "The 'oven' was built on the outside wall.  The ovens were used toheat the houses. During the winter, every evening the ovens wereheated mostly with straw or other burning material. Sometimes thefire was taken advantage to prepare supper.  Since the houses wereheated only once a day, (only on  a cold day would a house be heatedin the evening and again in the morning.)" From   Alex Leeb <aleeb@calcna.ab.ca> They would whitewash the inside (sometimes with colored lime) anddecorate it with stencils.  The stencil's design was in later timesengraved on a rubber roller.  The roller was then rolled it into somedarker lime paint and rolled on the wall leaving the design.  Thismethod was quite common all throughout eastern Europe. The ceiling ina house was also built from sod (grass & mud). Once a year, mostly inthe autumn when the Kirchweihfest (Church Festivals) were held, thewalls were geweisselt (g'weisseldt = geweisselt, means -"made white."The wallswerre washed down with white powder paint made of lime mixedwith water. This is referred to as whitewashed.  The "house had earthfloors and they were "cured" by soaking cow manure in a bucket ofwater and then dipping a rag into this mix and wiping down the floors.This caused the earth to "glaze" over and there was no dust or loosedirt" (so says Fred Sprager's mother Eva Prunkl from Zichydorf).       fred_sprager@accel.net (Ferdinand J. Sprager, Kirkfield, Ontario  Each village had a distinct wooden trim on the houses  ....differenciating one village from another. The attic was used to store food in it. With a strong ceiling, wheat,corn, barley were stored in the attic. Sticks or poles were put intothe chimney and strung horizontally by way of iron hooks secured tothe rafters.  These were used to hang sausages to be smoked from 4-6weeks. Then the smoked meat goods such as hams, bacon slabs andsausages. were hung and stored in the attic.  These were wrapped ingauze against flies  From  " Alex Leeb   <aleeb@calcna.ab.ca> --- On Thu, 8/5/10, gbrettrager@aol.com <gbrettrager@aol.com> wrote: From: gbrettrager@aol.com <gbrettrager@aol.com> Subject: Re: [BANAT-L] House construction To: eantis@verizon.net, BANAT@rootsweb.com Date: Thursday, August 5, 2010, 11:39 AM Probably depends on when.  In Glogowatz they were originally stamped brick, which don't stand up well to floods.  After a couple floods, the houses were made of fired brick. George -----Original Message----- From: Elinor <eantis@verizon.net> To: BANAT@rootsweb.com Sent: Thu, Aug 5, 2010 7:43 am Subject: [BANAT-L] House construction   I am writing a book/booklet for my husbands family on their family history.   I am also trying to include whatever I can about life in the Banat in the   early years.  My  question  for  now  is: How were the houses actually   constructed? Their house in Ernsthausen was apparently one big room with two   windows on the front. I've seen pictures and there appear to be houses with   either one or two windows across the front. Were they built of some kind of   concrete blocks, or some kind of adobe type material? What were and how were   the roofs constructed? Thank you for any kind of information. Elinor Antis ------------------------------ o unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to BANAT-request@rootsweb.com ith the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of he message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to BANAT-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message