Reading C&H's site, I think the living room reference in the article is false. The rack is supposed to be in the basement to add heat to your water heating system.

Heat pump heating is loud too, but people make it work.

It doesn't have to be inside.

My furnace is pretty loud. I find it to be comforting.

I regularly construct/test/burnin Supermicro servers here in home office before sending them off for collocation

The noise is something else from just one server with the fans being especially annoying

In a datacenter environment a single rack makes a mighty annoying noise and vibrations.

I would not want to be living anywhere near a rack lol