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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

> Dutch researchers managed to reduce total cable length in a house down from 40 metres to 12 metres. They did this by moving the kitchen and the living room (where most electricity is used) to the first floor, just below the roof (where the solar panels are), while moving the bedrooms to the ground floor. They also clustered most appliances in the central part of the building, right below the solar panels

Now this is dedication ...

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That's not great, since entertaining guests it is preferable to have these rooms on the ground floor, and the bedrooms which can be private on the upstairs floor.

While upstairs has a better view, more light coming in through the windows, and heat rises up (so the bedrooms can be kept comfortable cool). I guess it depends on the house and it's surroundings:-)

> 40 metres to 12 metres

So they sacrificed the freedom of design to save €100?

What's happening in their living room to use so much electricity? I figured TVs, computers and lighting use a fraction of what they used to use.

My mom is in a typical suburb tract housing development, and the kitchen is right above the service entrance and the HVAC/mechanical room is right at it.

Great they're applying the same logic to solar-first systems, but it's not a new concept at all.

a combination of a 60" TV and an xbox series X or a PS5 is probably the most power consuming thing in a living room, an xbox of any type when actively rendering a game puts out a decent amount of waste heat. Nowhere near as much as a more costly desktop gaming PC, but still a fair amount.

It’s actually not that crazy. Many multi story houses have their plumbing and hvac built this way to save on copper pipe and get you hot water faster. All the bathrooms etc backing a central plumbing chase.

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