How to Determine the Square Foot of a Room

Square footage is the standard way to denote the area of a room or house. The two most common uses for square footage are to list a house or apartment size and to install flooring or carpeting in a room. A square foot is an area that is one foot on each side. So if you see a house listed that has 2000 square feet you can know that it is approximately 100 feet long by 20 feet wide.

Tape measure
Calculator

Instructions

- 1
  Measure the length and width of the room. Multiply the numbers in feet to determine the square feet. For example a 10 foot by 10 foot room has 100 square feet. Unfortunately it's not always so simple.
- 2
  Break apart the measurements for different sections of the room if you have an odd-shaped room. Tackle each rectangular section individually and then add the total amount together. If you have a fractional number of feet you can multiply the inches and then divide the result by 144. For example 10.5 feet times 10.5 feet equals 126 inches times 126 inches which is 15,876 square inches. Divide by 144 to get 110.25 square feet.
- 3
  For complex shapes and numbers you can use a square footage calculator (See Resources). However, you can find the area of a triangle by multiplying the width by the height and then dividing the total by 2. For the area of a circle you can square the distance from the center to the edge, and then multiply by 3.14. For example, if the distance is 4 feet you would multiply it by itself to get 16 and then multiply by 3.14 to get 50.24 square feet.

Fire Escape Stair Requirements

The Components of Architectural Aluminum Railing

Architecture