If you had to think about how tocalculate the area of walls in your apartment or in the house, then, most likely, you started repair. So, it is necessary to calculate the area of the room in which the finishing work will be done. This is done, basically, in order to calculate the consumption of finishing material for a certain amount of work. All measurements can greatly simplify the availability of the technical passport of the room, but for various reasons it may simply not be on hand. In addition, sometimes the dimensions specified in the document may not coincide with the real ones.
Metering tools
In order to calculate the area of the walls in the room, you will need the knowledge gained once in the lessons in elementary school, and prepare the most ordinary tools:
- A sheet of paper, in order to schematically draw the location of all the walls, niches, doors and windows in the room or apartment.
- Pencil or pen.
- Roulette. It is more convenient to use a laser version, but if it is not, then a conventional mechanical meter will do.
- A building cord or any thread, for measuring the radius, if the room has a rounded shape.
- The calculator will be needed to simplify the counting process.
Basic values
How to calculate the wall area in square meters?It's simple. To do this, all measurements must be made in meters, because this is the main measure of the area used in the finishing works. Of course, you can measure everything in centimeters, but it will be extremely inconvenient because of too long numbers. In addition, when buying a material, you still have to translate all measurements into square meters.
When calculating any areas, the following indicators are used:
- h is the height of the walls. For more accurate measurements (if required), it is recommended to measure the height in several places, and then find the average.
- L is the length of the wall. For convenience, measurements are made in the middle of the wall, but for more accurate calculations, measure the bottom, middle and top of the wall, fold and divide by three. The average length is obtained.
- P is the perimeter. The sum of the lengths of all room walls.
- S is the area. Measured in square meters.
- π is the number pi, which is equal to 3.14 (rounded).
- R is the radius. It is necessary to calculate the area in round rooms or in rooms with rounded elements.
Area of walls of a rectangular room
Perhaps the easiest option for measurements. For this, only two quantities are needed:
- Height and length. For the area of one wall, S = h × L.
- Height and perimeter. To measure the area of all walls, S = h × P.
Example. For a room with a wall length L1 = 3.58 m and L2 = 2.46 m at height h = 2.52 m, the perimeter will be equal to
P = (L 1+ A2) × 2 = 12.08 m.
This formula works for the same opposite walls, if all the walls differ in length, then P = L1 + A2 + A3 + A4.
Accordingly, the area of all the walls will be equal to:
S = h × P = 12.08 × 2.46 = 30.4416 m².
And how to calculate the wall area in square rooms? In the same way: multiply the height by the length of the room and get the area of one wall:
FROM1 = L × h.
Since the room is square, in order to find the area of all the walls one needs to multiply the area of one wall by four:
S = S1 × 4.
Calculation of room with round elements
For rooms that have a circular shape or semicircle elements, the calculation will become slightly more complicated, and will be done in a slightly different way:
- For completely round rooms, the calculation formula will be the same.
First we find the perimeter of the room
P = 2 π R or P = π D, where:
D is the diameter.
And in order to calculate the area of the walls, the perimeter must be multiplied by the height of the room S = P × h.
- For rooms that have round elements, you needschematically cut off the rounded part, thus obtaining two figures. Then calculate the area of each element and add them. As a result, we get the total area of all the walls in the room.
Example. Room Settings: L1 = 3.4 m, L2 = 4.1 m, h = 2.52 m and R = 1.54 m. The calculation procedure will be as follows:
The perimeter of the first figure will be:
P1 = π R = 3.14 × 1.54 = 4.8356 m.
Area:
FROM1 = Π1 × h = 4.8356 × 2.52 = 12.1857 m².
Perimeter of the second element:
P2 = (L1 + A2) × 2 = (3.4 + 4.1) × 2 = 15 m, and the area will be:
FROM2 = Π2 × h = 15 × 2.52 = 37.8 m².
Total area of walls in the room:
S = S1 + C2 = 12.1857 + 37.8 = 49.98 m².
Calculating the area of an irregularly shaped room
Quite often there are rooms, apartments and houses with walls of non-standard form. It can be all kinds of ledges, niches and columns or walls, which create by their construction various figures.
How to calculate the wall area in this situation? Yes, all the same, despite the non-standard forms, the approach to calculating their area is quite ordinary.
- First, you need to schematically divide the room so that you get different geometric shapes. We calculate the area of each of them, and then add up, thus obtaining a total area.
- Another way to calculate the area, but henot always convenient, because of the heap of furniture for example. It consists that it is necessary to pass a tape measure on all walls (any forms) round. That is, starting to measure from one corner to it and return. Having obtained a common perimeter, multiply it by the height and find the total area of the room at once.
- Another type of wall irregular shape - the attic.In this situation, the wall is divided schematically into a quadrilateral and a triangle. Depending on which triangle is obtained (rectangular, isosceles or equilateral), different formulas are used to calculate the area.
For example, for a right-angled triangle:
S = ½ab, where:
a and b are the sides forming a right angle.
Or one can use Geron's formula:
S = √p (p-a) (p-b) (p-c), where:
a b c - sides of a triangle, and p - a halfperimeter a + b + c ÷ 2, which allows to calculate the area of a triangle on three sides.
And how to calculate the area of the walls of a house or apartment? The answer is even easier than the question. We find the area of each room separately and their amount will be the area of the apartment or house.
Subtract windows and doors
If we want to calculate the wall area correctly,then you can not do without this action. Windows and doors, or rather their size, give a big error in the calculations, if you do not subtract their area. The calculation of the area of window and door openings does not differ from the calculation of the area of the walls and looks like this:
- you need to multiply the height and width of the window or doorway, thereby obtaining an area.
- then add the areas of all openings and subtract the result from the area of the room.
- The answer will be the most accurate.
Example.The 43.8 m² room has a 2.1-by-1.45-meter window opening and a 0.9-by-2.07 doorway. By computing, we obtain a window area of 3,045 m² and a door area of 1,863 m². Adding the results, we get the total area of the existing openings equal to 4.908 m². Now we subtract these figures from the area of the room and get a more accurate result:
S = 43.8-4.908 = 38.892 m², where:
S is the area of all walls without windows and doors.
Finally
More accurate measurements will help you:
- to make an estimate of expenses for the forthcoming repair;
- purchase the necessary quantity of finishing materials;
- avoid unnecessary costs, buying more material than you need;
- calculate the upcoming costs for the work that will be carried out by hired professionals.
