How to Find Square Foot

Square feet are a unit of measurement that indicates the area of a flat surface. The size of one square foot covers the area of a square that has a length of one foot and a width of one foot. This measurement is important for a variety of different tasks. The square footage, or number of square feet, of a wall area is used to determine the amount of paint needed to cover it. The square footage of a floor is needed to determine how many tiles are needed to cover it.

Things You'll Need

• Tape measure

Instructions

1. Measure the length of the wall or floor.

2. Measure the width of the wall or floor.

3. Multiply the length and width to get the square footage of the wall or floor. This is also called the area of the wall or floor.

Tips & Warnings

• If you multiply different units of length and width together, such as yards and inches, or if you use meters, you will get an area measurement that is incorrect for square footage. If your measurements, are for example, one foot wide and one foot six inches long, you have to make both dimensions the same kind of units--in this case 12 inches by 18 inches. Then you can multiply these and divide the result by 12 to get square feet (12 x18 = 216; 216/12 = 18 feet). If you have dimensions in meters, you have to find how many inches a meter is and do the same calculation.

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• Square Foot Calculator