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I'm not advocating taking this to commune-like extremes, but I'm surprised I don't hear more about taking advantage of sharing certain items to maximise living

I'm not advocating taking this to commune-like extremes, but I'm surprised I don't hear more about taking advantage of sharing certain items to maximise living space and minimise costs. Two candidates that spring to mind would be vacuum cleaners and washing machines. Surely it's cheaper to have one industrial-quality version of each shared between 10/15 residents (with some sort of online booking system) than for everyone to have one each and lose the space?

objclxt 14y ago
Are you by any chance European? A lot of US apartments do have a shared laundry...I can't think of any of my American friends who have a washing machine. This is in contrast to the UK, where it's culturally the norm for every flat to have its own washing machine (normally a condensor combi dryer, another thing not so popular in the US). Sames goes for heat: heat if often shared in the US, but here in the UK almost all apartments have individual boilers. I am sure somebody here must have an explanation for exactly why this cultural difference has developed, because I have no clue!
- arethuza 14y ago
  Perhaps because a lot of buildings in the UK were converted into flats in a rather piecemeal fashion? e.g. Where we live started out as a 5 floor (enormous) town house with garden and stable block ~200 years ago and was split into 4 properties and then one of these was split into another 2.
- alexhawdon 14y ago
  Yep - UK, and neither of those things are common over here (I don't know of any at all). How would the shared heating work, financially? Over here our energy costs are very high so a lot (most?) of our energy bills go on heating and hot water; if you want to save money, you put a jumper on and have a shower rather than a bath. With shared heating you don't have this option, but do the overall savings from greater efficiency (an assumption) make this a moot point?
  - gfhsdfy 14y ago
    http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heizkostenverteiler http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heizkostenverteiler
    - alexhawdon 14y ago
      Thanks to you... and to Google Translate :) Love living in the future.
R_Edward 14y ago
Central vac, with shared hose and power head. Make it so, Numba One.

objclxt 14y ago

Are you by any chance European? A lot of US apartments do have a shared laundry...I can't think of any of my American friends who have a washing machine. This is in contrast to the UK, where it's culturally the norm for every flat to have its own washing machine (normally a condensor combi dryer, another thing not so popular in the US). Sames goes for heat: heat if often shared in the US, but here in the UK almost all apartments have individual boilers. I am sure somebody here must have an explanation for exactly why this cultural difference has developed, because I have no clue!

arethuza 14y ago
Perhaps because a lot of buildings in the UK were converted into flats in a rather piecemeal fashion? e.g. Where we live started out as a 5 floor (enormous) town house with garden and stable block ~200 years ago and was split into 4 properties and then one of these was split into another 2.
alexhawdon 14y ago
Yep - UK, and neither of those things are common over here (I don't know of any at all). How would the shared heating work, financially? Over here our energy costs are very high so a lot (most?) of our energy bills go on heating and hot water; if you want to save money, you put a jumper on and have a shower rather than a bath. With shared heating you don't have this option, but do the overall savings from greater efficiency (an assumption) make this a moot point?
- gfhsdfy 14y ago
  http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heizkostenverteiler http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heizkostenverteiler
  - alexhawdon 14y ago
    Thanks to you... and to Google Translate :) Love living in the future.

R_Edward 14y ago

Central vac, with shared hose and power head. Make it so, Numba One.