How to properly measure house for square footage

[BlizzofOZ]

Have owned my house for 12 years and it has a fireplace that we rarely use. I've wanting to install a freestanding wood stove to supplement my oil heating.

First step in determining what stove to get is find out the square footage for my house.

What is the proper way to do this? Simply measure each room up?

 

[CrazyAboutOrchids]

Easiest way is to measure the exterior. Length x width. If it's 2 story, it's length x width x 2.

I have a 2 story colonial with a single story family room over the garage. For my square footage, it's length of the main house x width of the main house x 2 plus length x width of the family room.

 

[Corie]

It is also important to consider the volume of the rooms. A house that's 20x15 ft with all 8ft ceilings is a much smaller space than if you start considering cathedral ceilings, etc. If your house is on the normal side, than its probably nothing to worry about.

 

[citizanken]

I think the correct way to figure that would be to measure each room of finished living space that you will be heating by Length x Width and then adding that up for the total. Corie, I am not sure you would need to consider the volume with ceiling heights as I think I once read that since the heat will rise, this is not needed to taken into account. On that note, you may not even have to consider the square footage of rooms above your installation, only on the same floor or below. Please wait for a confirmation on this tho as I am pretty green.

 

[Roospike]

Keep in mind that the 'rating' for a particular stove prolly has a margin of error of +/- 50%.

Well .........a ............ Yeah , Just what Dylan said. :lol:

 

[Hogwildz]

Sqaure footage is length times width. If you figure in the height now you figuring cubic feet in mass I believe.

 

[babalu87]

Keep in mind that the 'rating' for a particular stove prolly has a margin of error of +/- 50%.

Well .........a ............ Yeah , Just what Dylan said. :lol:

For the trifecta

THEN????
Where do you live
Hill or Valley
South facing windows

 

[BrotherBart]

Square footage of houses has always been "heated space" according to those folks I hold just below used car salesman, real estate peddlers.

That would mean the length X the width of the house subtracting the wall thickness X number of floors. Of course the heated space advertised by the stove companies is crap anyway so buy the biggest stove that your wife likes to look at.

The stove company numbers probably work great for a one story well insulated warehouse with no internal walls and an eight foot ceiling. With the stove dead center in the room.

 

[Corie]

Perhaps not in a sizing a woodstove for a house, where figures are very ballpark at best, the volume needn't be considered. However any serious HVAC calculation will involve the volume of the room, not just the square footage of the floor. Imagine a church that was 10x20 ft versus a house that was 10x20ft. Stick the same heating system on the two buildings and see if the results are satisfactory for both. This is direct from the HVAC course I take.

 

[elkimmeg]

Tghere is too many factore other than square footage. Glass area insulation you need a heat take off of your home does your existing Burner do the job? what is its output btus
and tested effeciency. Factor this in stoves are zone heaters, Manufactures over state BTUs and Heated areas It is extremly hard to run a stove at peak BTUS. Realistically
subtract 33% from manufactured claims for real world conditions. One has to have a real open floor plan to get beyond the zone effect