How to Figure Square Footage of a House
Whether you're planning to put your house up for sale or are just curious about how large a space you live in, calculating your home's square footage requires basic measurements and math skills.
The method used varies according to your purpose. You can get a very rough idea of square footage by measuring the length and width of your exterior walls and multiplying that number by the total number of floors. More complex calculations--done by real estate appraisers, for example--will involve adding or subtracting space based on whether it is "livable" or not.
Calculations done using exterior measurements ensure that spaces like closets, hallways and stairwells are included in your square footage measurements.
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Instructions
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Measure the length and width of your home using a measuring tape. Do this from the exterior of your house. If your home is not a basic rectangle shape, think of your home as being two or more rectangles stuck together and measure the length and width of each. It might help to make a sketch of your home's perimeter to see all of the various rectangle shapes. Write the lengths and widths on the corresponding lines of your drawing. Don't include any area of your home that is unheated or that you don't live in year round (such as a garage, unfinished basement, balcony or deck). Make sure that you include add-on "rectangles" like heated, enclosed porches or sun rooms. If you have to measure a particular distance from the inside of your home, make sure you add 6 inches for an exterior wall and 4 inches for an interior wall to your final measurement.
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Multiply the length and width of your rectangle. This will give you the basic square footage of a single floor of your home. If your home consists of multiple rectangles, find the square footage of each of these rectangles by doing separate length-times-width calculations for each. Then add the resulting numbers together to get the square footage for one floor of your home.
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Multiply the single story total by the number of floors in your home to get your total square footage. This method only works if you have exactly the same amount of livable space on each floor. For more complex home layouts that have partially finished basements or four-season sun rooms on a single floor, separate square footage calculations for each floor and add them together to get your total square footage.
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References
- Photo Credit Bauplanung image by Yvonne Bogdanski from Fotolia.com
