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Once you are ready to sell your home, a very critical next step is measuring its area. This is the very first information that your potential buyers will want to know and so, it is very important to accurately determine it. You may get the help of a professional to do this for you but it is a very simple process that you can just do yourself. Even though there is no exact science in measuring your house’s floor area, there are certain guidelines that you can take to make sure that the value that you will get will be accurate enough.

 

1. Draw a Sketch of Your Home’s Floor Area

The first step that you must do is to draw a rough sketch of your home’s floor area. It does not have to be accurate in terms of size, the only thing is that on this drawing, you should be able to include all parts of your home. This will also let you know which specific lengths you should measure.

 

2. Determine Which Rooms You Will Include in Your Measurement

Not all areas of your home can add to its total floor area. You must first know the specific requirements if they can be included. Such areas include basements, garages, patios, porches, other rooms and external staircases. Some basic rules to know if a certain area of your home are detailed below. These rules are generally accepted. However, some standards may still differ from each other depending on who the realtor is.

For a certain room or area to be included in your measurement, the ceiling must be 7 feet (2.13 m) tall or 6 feet 4 inches with beams or anything else that might hang down. For rooms with angled ceilings like the attic, it must meet the ceiling height requirement of 7 feet for at least half the room’s floor area. However, even if a certain room meets this requirement, any part of it with a ceiling height of less than 5 feet should not be included.

Another requirement is that the room must be finished for it to be included in your measurement. Also, according to ANSI, any part of the house that is below ground level must not be included. This includes basement areas, even if they are finished.

Lastly, there is a rule that says that if you will need to leave the finished area of the main house to gain access to it, it cannot be included in your measurement. These include outside garages, guesthouses, pool areas or any other rooms that may fit this category.

 

3. Note on Your Sketch Which Parts of Your House Will be Included and Divide Them Into Simpler Shapes

Once you have determined which areas and rooms of your house can included in your measurement, take note of these in your sketch. These areas and rooms may have separate floor areas that have a complex shape in which calculating the floor area is not straightforward. However, this can easily be fixed by dividing these areas into simpler shapes. For example, if you have an L-shaped room, you can divide it into 2 rectangles.

Your goal is to be able to divide your total floor area into simple shapes like squares, rectangles, and triangles. Once this is accomplished, you can calculate the areas of these individual shapes and add them together to get the total.

 

4. Calculate these Separate Areas and Take the Sum to Get the Total

  • For a square room, you can measure one side of it and multiply it by itself to get its area. However, you may mistake a rectangle room for a square one, so it would be best to assume that it a square room to be rectangular.
  • For a rectangle room, measure both of its sides (length and width), and multiply those with each other to get its area.
  • For a triangular area or part of a room, measure the shortest distance between one of its corners and the wall that is directly in front of it. You will then have to measure the total length of this wall. To get its area, multiply these two lengths with each other and then to one half or 0.5.
  • For a circular area or part of a room, you will need to measure the distance between its center to any of its side. This is called the radius. To get its area, multiply this radius by itself and then to the number pi or 3.1416.

Take note that if you are using feet and inches on your measurement, you will need to convert the measured values to feet only. For example, 6 foot 6 inches would be 6.5 feet. To do this, divide the number of inches by 12 and add to the number of feet. The last step would be for you to add the areas of these individual shapes to and add them together to get the total area.

We know very well the time that goes into property valuation. We hope these tips will help you save some time & money in finding the correct measurements of your home.