text: The floor of the dugout home was of dirt or rough wooden planks. Walls were lined with newspapers pasted or pinned up with small, sharpened sticks to keep dirt from flaking into the home's interior. Some families used fabric on their walls while others created a plaster coating from local limestone and sand. Some were carpeted and other variations included building on a second room for school teachers or guests. Heating could be provided by burning buffalo chips or cow chips. The home's comfort and structural stability were maximized when the structure was located on the south side of a low hill, with adequate drainage to provide run-off for rain and melting snow. Most pioneer dugouts had a short lifespan, being replaced by plank or rock homes when farmers had time and money to create larger, more traditional homes. When a family built a house of logs or boards, their domestic animals often continued to be sheltered in a sod dugout.
  Burdeis
  In frontier Canada and the United States, dugout style shelters were also used by pioneers and settlers from Europe. In these cases, the shelter's construction closely reflected the architecture of the various settlers' origins. They ranged from the French-Canadian–style sod houses called caveaux to the burdeis built by Ukrainian immigrants. The burdei was intended as a temporary refuge until a "proper" home of poplar logs and mud/straw plaster could be built. Mennonites from Imperial Russia also built burdeis as temporary shelters when they settled in the Hillsboro region of Kansas.
  Wartime dugouts