How to Calculate Square Footage

There are many reasons to want to know how to calculate square footage. If you are installing carpeting or flooring, building a room or even a house, it is something that you need to know. Carpenters and bricklayers who are in the business long enough can get so good a calculating square footage that they almost don't need a tape measure. For most of us, however, a tape measure is necessary. Sometimes it is not only necessary to know how to calculate square footage, but also to know why we are calculating it.

When it comes to how to calculate square footage, the formula is very simple. There are some variations because there are variations in shapes. When you are calculating square footage you aren't always just doing so for a basic square or rectangular room. When learning to calculate square footage, however, you can start with how to do so in the basic square or rectangular shape, since this what you will be measuring most often.

Let's say that you need to know how to calculate square footage of a room. Using a tape measure and calculating by feet, measure the length of the room and write that down. Then measure the width of the room and write that down. Multiply the length by the width and you have the square footage of the entire room. If there is a part of the room that isn't uniform with the rest, such as a bay window, you want to measure the square footage in that particular spot and then add it to the other results. This is especially important if you are measuring to lay flooring or carpeting. You don't want to come up short.

If you are wondering how to calculate square footage for more oddly shaped things such as ovals or triangles, there is a trick to this. If it is something round, take the largest square area possible within the space and measure the square footage of that first. Then keep continually measuring smaller square areas in the space until you can't do it anymore. Add your results together and add a sufficient amount to make up for the small areas that you could not measure in square footage. This approximation should work well enough.

Knowing how to calculate square footage will come more easily to you if you do it often enough. If you are doing it on a continual basis, you will probably learn to do it fairly well in your head. Estimating square footage is often a fun challenge, as long as you make sure to not use it as an absolute!

About The Author:
Samantha is now a regular contributor for www.articleclick.com. Please visit the site for additional articles.

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Title:	How to Calculate Square Footage
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How to Calculate Square Footage