I thought this rotating house was impossible.

Tom Scott · 8.3M views · 2023-07-10 · 7:31

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Overview

Tom Scott visits a rotating house near San Diego and explains how electricity, gas and water keep working on the rotating part. It includes a 3D render of the utility connection system.

On Hacker News

HN likes the clear animation of how slip rings and piping let a house rotate.

Recommended by 4 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2023–2024

Topics

Civil engineering & construction Mechanical & precision engineering

What people said

dabluecaboose · 2024-02 · Recommendation
Unsure about this particular house in NZ, but there's one in California that Tom Scott did a video on with a very good animation of how its electricity/water/sewage slip ring works: [VIDEO]
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alargemoose · 2024-02 · Recommendation
It’s not the same rotating house, but Tom Scott did a video last year that has a great 3D render of the system that designer used to facilitate their build! [VIDEO]
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isaidthis · 2023-10 · Recommendation
The owner of a custom rotating house in California cited a similar reason for moving. The video is worth watching but here is the relevant section: "I've had 18 heart procedures. My wife is in perfect health. The odds of me outliving her are zero...We're moving back to Coronado. This is a complex house, even though I think it's simple! For her to try and teach somebody else how to run everything and do everything would be difficult if something happened to me. So we're just kind of jumping ahead." [VIDEO]
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Sources

Video by Tom Scott, played through YouTube.

HN Library · Source license

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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