Calculating Square Footage


Calculate Square Footage

If you are in the estate rental and marketing industry, you need to master the calculation of square footage because you will never know when to use it whether to calculate a room, house or even a garden. Having the knowledge of this measurement will be very useful in your daily routine because it will enable you to compute a particular area by foot. It is a challenging task but if you have master the method, it will be as easy as counting beans.

What you need:

  1. Tape measure
  2. Calculator
  3. Pen
  4. Paper

Method:

  1. In order to calculate a square or rectangular area, you need to measure the length of the area by using a tape measure. Note down the measurement on a piece of paper and make sure you label the measurement length. Next, is to calculate square or rectangular area\’s width and also note it down and label the width. You should round the measurement to the nearest foot or half foot in order to get a more accurate measure for instance if the measure is 5 feet and 4.8 inches, you should round it up to 5.5 feet.
  2. Then, you need to multiply the square or rectangular area\’s length by the width so that you will be getting the square footage. For example, if you have a length (L) that equals to 15 feet and width (W) that equals to 7 feet, the standard method is as follow:

    Square Footage of the room area = L x W

    = 15 ft X 7 ft

    = 105 square feet (sq ft)

  3. As for calculating a right triangle, which normally has a 90-degree angle, you need to start measuring the triangle\’s base first which is the shorter line attached to the triangle\’s right angle. Then, proceed to measure its height which is the longer line that is attached to the triangle\’s right angle. Always remember to note down the measurement in foot and round it to the nearest foot or half foot.
  4. Then, you need to multiply the figures and divide them by two or 0.5. For example, if you have a base (B) amount that equals to 8 feet and height (H) amount that equals to 12 feet, the standard method is as follow:

    Square footage of the Triangle = (B) (H) (0.5)

= (8 feet) (12 feet) (0.5)

= 48 square feet

  1. To calculate a square footage of a circle area, you need to get the radius of the circle which is the distance from the outside of the circle to the center of the circle. The measurement is one-half of the circumferences and you must make sure to measure the radius by feet. In order to do the calculation, you need to get the square of your radius. If your radius is 6 feet, the figures need to be multiplied with the same figure. For instance, 6 feet multiply by 6 feet which equals to 36 feet.
  2. Then, you need to multiply the square of the radius with pi (p) which is an equivalent to 3.1416. Example of the standard method is as follow:

Square footage of the Circle = 36 feet (3.1416)

= 11.0976 square feet

  1. For irregular shapes that comes with a various combination of rectangle, triangle, and circle, you need to divide the area to their basic shapes and after getting the respective square footage, you need to add all of them together in order to get the total square footage.

Additional Reading:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2002513_calculate-square-footage.html

http://www.demesne.info/Improve-Your-Home/calculate-feet.htm

Image Credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimg944/4440057438/