Figuring Out Your Home's Square Footage

The area of a house is a measurement of the space that it occupies.

When planning to build or purchase a house, one of the initial tasks is to figure out the required area, often called square footage. Sellers also need to provide this measurement. With just a few tools and basic math, you can determine a home's area.

Step 1

Use a tape measure to measure the exterior walls of the house.

Step 2

On a sheet of graph paper, create a scaled drawing of the house based on your measurements. For example, using a ruler, let each inch on the paper represent 10 feet of actual length.

Step 3

Break the drawing down into basic geometric shapes. If the house is a perfect rectangle or square, no further division is needed. If not, split it into rectangles and squares when possible, and use circles or triangles only if necessary.

Step 4

Calculate the area of each shape by multiplying its dimensions. For rectangles and squares, multiply length by width. For triangles, multiply the height by the base length and divide by two. For circles, find the radius by measuring from the center to the edge. Then square the radius (multiply it by itself) and multiply that result by 3.14 (pi).

Step 5

Sum the areas of all individual shapes to get the total area of the house.