Cseri Miklós, Füzes Endre (szerk.): Ház és ember, A Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum évkönyve 6. (Szentendre, Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 1990)

LUKÁCS LÁSZLÓ: Tűzhelyek a Káli medencei házban

HEATING DEVICES IN THE HOUSES OF THE KAL BASIN The Kál Basin (Veszprém county) was originally a territory of chimneyless kitchens and stoves where open chimneys appeared as early ad the 18th century. The two types simultaneously existed during the 18th—19th centuries. The older type with its chimneyless kitchen and stove was characteristic first of all of peasant houses and outnumbered the houses fitted out with a chimney. Beside adherence to the chimneyless kitchen under the pressure of need, efforts for smoke removal were also observable in our century. The simplest way to it was cutting one or more füstlyuk (smoke hole), füstnyílás (smoke opening) into the plank ceiling of the chimneyless kitchen through which some of the smoke could leave for the loft. It is the large number of houses roofed with thatch or reed and having no chimney that accounts for the fact that among village officials there was a korombíró (soot judge) as late as the beginning of our century. In the course of performing his duties of fireprotection the soot judge visited the houses of chimneyless kitchen from time to time to check on the proper maintenance and cleanliness of the fireplace. The oldest buildings of provable age have an open chimney each. They all belonged to either well-to-do noblemen, professionals of non-noble birth, or to the Church or some estate. It might happen later, of course, that some of them passed into peasant hands. The house of the Calvinist ecclesiast in Monoszló (1765), the Duchon house in Kővágóörs (1771), the Kernács Mansion (1821), the Barla house (1824), the Istvándi house in Szentbékkálla (1825) and the Neuperger house (1837) each had an open chimney. Both in the houses with chimneyless kitchen and in those having an open chimney, the owners strove for total smoke removal, for making the kitchen perfectly free of smoke. This could be achieved in both cases by the construction of internally accessible flues. From the end of the last and the beginning of this century, the direction of development was determined by the appearance the internally accessible flue. The oldest intenally flue known so far in the Kál Basin is in Köveskál. On its tin door the date 1887 can be read. From the point of view of heating devices the only difference betwen the houses of chimneyless kitchen and the ones with open chimney lay in the way of smoke removal. Otherwise I found the same heating devices: an open fire ledge, a big oven, a small oven and a kettle in the kitchen, and a tiled stove in the room. During my field work I tried to explore and document as many as possible houses with chimneyless kitchen, with open chimney, and heating devices, appreciable from the point of view of vernacular architecture. The results of this research work are published in my study.