The inventor missed an opportunity to power the spin with a Ford Taurus…
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I did not. I’m guessing any news stories about it might only be in local papers. However, I suspect a few things:
- The house is still under construction, suggested by the open framing and plastic
- The house may be a prefab that isn’t set on a foundation yet
- Pallets are visible under the house, which makes me think this was a lark set up by the guy before they finish setting it on the foundation and roughing in the utilities.
I think this is one of those “the story is not what the internet says it is” stories. The complaint from the wife (and it’s always “the wife”) sounds made up and the whole story is a little “just so” for my taste. I think the story was made up after the stunt, and the stunt is just that- a stunt.
Being a Bosnian farmhouse, it’s also certainly possible it simply doesn’t have electricity or running water.
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There are photos in the Reuters story that show the mechanism underneath and there’s definitely a substantial concrete center structure supporting this thing. I’ve worked on a few large rotating mechanisms not too unlike this, and it’s definitely not something that could easily be done as a lark. It is possible that this was all meant to be temporary and he always planned on eventually doing a fixed foundation with normal plumbing, but at this guy’s age I kinda doubt he plans to make huge changes.
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indeed. from that article:
The project took six years to finish, except time off for a hospital stay due to a heart condition. “I asked doctors to try to prolong (my life) for at least a year because I have this project in my head, and… nobody will know how to complete it.”
for electrical: i do wonder if, with the proper gearing, you could generate dc just off the rotation itself.
plumbing… i don’t know. but to get rid of stuff you could always just spin it fast enough and open a window. 
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Running electrical power through slip rings or a bus bar would be fairly straightforward. I recently bought a 20 amp slip ring for a home project for about $15, so a larger unit that could power a small house wouldn’t be crazy expensive.
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Oh good find! That’s that certainly interesting. Maybe he intends to run flexible lines which will limit rotations, but still be sufficient.
Edit: after reading your link, I’m thinking maybe the kitchen/bath are in the middle like the other houses discussed above. That round foundation is certainly big enough for a stationary core. Six years is a huge project, so I suspect there’s a lot more to this than just the rotation mechanism.
It’s so frustrating that these articles are always written at a fifth grade level, intended for people who just want to look and say, “neat!” but don’t care about the deal-breaking details. No wonder people can’t tell real from fake in the news. The details are necessary for this distinction.
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There are flexible connections for electricity/water/wastewater used for floating houses, permanently moored ships and the like to compensate for tidal range. It should be possible to adapt/convert some of those to full rotation.
However, if I had to design a rotating house I would definitely opt for a non-rotating core which would hold all the water and wastewater installations. As Otherbrother says, getting electrical power into the rotating part doesn’t present much of a problem. The wet stuff falls under “possible, but not advisable”; I wouldn’t want to mess around with that, considering the possible failure modes.
Side node: IIRC, some of the follow-the-sun houses do not spin the full 360° and reset themselves during the night. I can see doing this with flexible connections.
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