How to measure square footage
It's not as simple to figure out as you might think. Here's how the experts calculate it.
ALLEN NORWOOD
Home Editor
It seems a simple task to calculate the square footage of, say, a bonus room over a garage. You grab a tape, measure length and width, and multiply the two dimensions. If you do the elementary-school math correctly, you get the area of the room.
Simple -- and wrong.
Calculating square footage is so complicated that experts who know all the rules won't come up with the same figures. In fact, there's so much confusion and legal wrangling over square footage that Charlotte real estate agents will stop posting specific figures in home listings later this month.
Official square footage is measured from the outside of a house. If you measure from the inside, you add 6 inches for each exterior wall.
In most bonus rooms, you'd add a foot to the width of the room, since side walls are likely exterior walls. You'd add just 6 inches to the length, though, since one end wall is probably shared with the rest of the house, and not an exterior wall. A bonus room that's 14 by 23 1/2 feet inside becomes 15 by 24 feet to calculate official heated living area.
Oh, and you can't count any area where the sloping ceiling dips below 5 feet. If the short "knee" walls in your bonus room are just 3 feet high, you have to deduct official square footage.
So, do you know how big is your bonus room now?
Listings are changing
Square footage is always a hot topic. Home sellers want to market every square foot they can, and home buyers often feel cheated if they don't get every square foot they think they're paying for. And the issue is making headlines this week because Charlotte's regional MLS announced it would eliminate specific square footage in listings.Beginning March 27, homes offered for sale through Carolina Multiple Listing Services will be posted only with square footage ranges. The specific square footage of a house won't be available until after the sale closes.
Real estate agents aren't required by law or licensing rules to provide square footage at all, which surprises many buyers and sellers, but when they do, their calculations are supposed to be as accurate as possible.
In Charlotte, agents often turn to services such as The Square Footage Source.
The company is operated by Tracy Briggs. She became an appraiser in 1995, during a refinancing boom. Now, she just measures houses for others -- Realtors, builders, architects, do-it-yourself sellers and, alas, divorce lawyers.
Last week, she measured a one-story house on Providence Road on the edge of Myers Park.
"Measuring is not an exact science," she said. "If one person rounds their measurement up or down, and I calculate using an exact measurement, there's going to be a difference."
From the outside
Customers are sometimes surprised that she measures from the outside.
"When I arrive, they immediately want to bring me inside," she said. But she doesn't remember anyone ever complaining, or even commenting, about paying for "livable space" that's lost because of the wall thickness.
She started at the right front corner of the house and worked to the left. She measured each straight run -- say, from the outside corner of the house to an inside corner by the front porch -- jotting down measurements and making a rough sketch of the home's footprint as she went.
She uses a 200-foot-long fiberglass tape on a big orange reel.
Briggs has tried electronic measuring devices, but returned to the tape.
Years ago she measured a house once with a tape, then twice with an infrared device. The electronic gizmos didn't provide accurate measurements consistently.
"I'm sure technology has since improved," she said, "but I guess I'm just old-fashioned."
She always works in 10ths of a foot, not inches, so the calculator can make quick work of the final math. A measurement of 28 feet 3 inches becomes 28.25 feet. The inches on her tape are marked in 10ths, not in 1/2-, 1/4- and 1/8-inch increments.
She'll round off the final calculation to a whole square foot.
When working with the tape, she sometimes has to break a straight run into smaller takes because something interferes. If a downspout gets in the way, for instance, she'll measure from the corner of the house to the downspout, note that distance, then hook the end of her tape to the downspout to finish the run.
A locked gate on one end of the Providence Road house meant she had to measure from the front corner of the house to the fence, then walk around and measure from the fence to the back corner of the house.
Those who measure houses hate big, prickly bushes planted close to foundations. Measurements against the house are most accurate. When Briggs can't get close to the house she'll drive a stake outside the bushes, lined up with the corner of the house, and measure from that.
"When bushes aren't in the way," she said with a laugh, "we say the house is `appraiser friendly.' " The Myers Park house was friendly.
Those who measure houses work rain or shine: "When I first started, I asked my boss one day, `What are we going to do since it's raining?' He said, `Heh, heh -- get in your car and go.' "
Plans don't always work out
When real estate agents and appraisers get complaints about their measurements, they sometimes invite homeowners to help measure.Homeowners have occasionally complained that Briggs' calculations didn't match their homes' square footage, but only once in the past dozen years has she insisted that a customer accompany her as she measured. Her dimensions didn't match those on the seller's house plans -- but it turned out the plans were wrong.
"I am constantly explaining to homeowners that what's on the plans sometimes does not carry over to the actual construction process," she said.
She charges by the complexity of the house.
A typical fee for a simple house might be $75; a multistory house with lots of complicated nooks and crannies is much more. Unusual angles and castle-like turrets make measuring more difficult, she said.
She doesn't charge by square footage because a straightforward two-story house is no more difficult than a similar one story, even though it could be twice the size.
Often, measuring the house is the easy part of her job.
Back at her desk, she transfers her rough sketches and dimensions into a computer program that produces a basic floor footprint. She recently measured a house that contained 12,000 square feet under roof.
"Drawing that house was the hard part," she said.
The customer gets a computerized drawing of the floor plan with square footage for first floor, second floor, garage and other spaces.
Want to know more?
"Residential Square Footage Guidelines," published by the N.C. Real Estate Commission, can be viewed online at www.ncrec.state.nc.us/ publications-bulletins /sqft.html.
Complex rules
• Carolina Multiple Listing Services requires its members to measure square footage of homes listed for sale, even though state law and licensing rules don't require the information in listings.
Beginning March 27, homes listed for sale will carry only square footage ranges; specific measurements won't be available until after closing.
The N.C. Real Estate Commission says it's essential that the figure be as accurate as possible. According to the commission's "Residential Square Footage Guidelines," deviations of less than 5 percent "will seldom be cause for concern." Five percent of 2,400 square feet would be 120 square feet.
