For professionals, it is, of course, simpler. They have a trained eye and a tool. But for those who do not have a building education, but due to circumstances decided to do the repair themselves, sometimes they have to rack their brains over the seemingly simplest tasks. Here, for example, such a question: how to find out the area of a room? And now the layman nervously draws lines on paper or paces the room back and forth, fiddling with a meter tape ... Oh, I had to listen more carefully to the geometry teacher!
But there’s no time for lyrics - the repair itself will not be done. Therefore, we will quickly consider all the nuances, and at the same time we will talk about cases when in general this very area of the room is so necessary.
Equipment
Before proceeding to take measurements, we arm ourselves with the following simple devices:
- tape measure or tape ;
- pencil or crayon;
- notebook with pen;
- calculator.
Make sure everything is at hand. Do not rely on the memory and phenomenal abilities of oral counting - immediately write down the numbers and read on the calculator. The obtained values, most likely, will not be round, it will not be easy to work with them in the mind.
Hint from the textbook
The formula of the square is one of the few knowledge obtained at school, which most people remember all their lives. You just need to multiply the length and width - nothing complicated.
Therefore, before knowing the area of a room, we simply measure the length of the walls. Multiply the obtained values, and here it is the result!
“But not all rooms have the shape of a rectangle and a square,” an inquisitive reader will certainly notice ... That's right, so we’ll try to turn the focus in rooms of an unusual layout.
A circle
Modern architecture is sometimes striking with non-standard solutions, so you should not think that the throne room in the castle of the pretentious king or the hall in the hotel can be round. Faced with this may, for example, the owner of a house in a fashionable new building or the person who bought the apartment after redevelopment. Again, remember the geometry course and write in the notebook the formula: S = πR².
In practice, measuring the diameter is easier than finding the radius, because for the latter you need to know exactly where the center is. And to find the diameter, simply fasten the edge of the measuring tape near one wall, move to the opposite one and find the point as far as possible from the beginning of the tape using trial and error.
Divide the resulting value in half, square and multiply by 3.14. So much for the area of the round room.
How to find out the area of an irregularly shaped room
Let's look at an example for greater clarity. Suppose we have the premises of a small apartment, the "guest room", in which we need to find out the area of the living room:
We do the following:
- measure wall 1 and wall 2, record the obtained values;
- multiply x: 7 x 3.5 = 24.5 (m 2 );
- we measure walls No. 3 and 4;
- multiply: 1.5 x 2.5 = 3.75 (m 2 );
- subtract from the obtained first value "excess area": 24.5 - 3.75 = 20.75 (m 2 ).
As you can see, again, nothing complicated!
Scope of application
And why are we even trying to understand how to find out the area of a room in square meters? Let's determine what materials this is useful for calculating. Of course, we are talking about materials for floor and ceiling. So, this value is needed when applied:
- plaster mix;
- primer, putty;
- paint;
- liquid wallpaper;
- textured plaster;
- varnish;
- laminate flooring, parquet;
- waterproofing roll materials;
- Styrofoam.
When calculating the consumption of material, we often (but not always!) Proceed from the area.
When it doesn’t come in handy
Choosing some types of finishes, you don’t have to think at all how to find out the area of a room. Why? Yes, because we will not make a junction of wallpaper in the middle of the ceiling or collect mosaics from linoleum. Relying on the area, it’s easy to make a mistake when buying, therefore, for rolled finishing materials we need linear dimensions of the walls - we will count by the number of whole strips. Such materials include:
- wallpaper;
- carpet;
- linoleum;
- Armstrong suspended ceiling;
- stretch ceiling.
Flooring (laminate, parquet) is no exception. In most cases, this value is informative for small tiles, but large ones are best calculated based on the length and width of the room.
Wall area
By the same principle that we used when calculating the area of the room of irregular shape (living room), you can easily calculate the area of the walls. Knowing the length and width of the room, calculate its perimeter, multiply by the height. We get the total surface area, from which we then subtract the area of windows, doors.
And here is a little trick on how to find out the area of the walls of a room pasted with typical wallpaper. If you see the joints between the strips, count their number. Divide by 2 and get the perimeter in meters. The fact is that the width of the roll of wallpaper is a little more than 50 cm. Therefore, you do not have to walk along the walls with a tape measure before you find out the perimeter of the room.
Knowing the area and linear dimensions of the room, it is easy to calculate the amount of materials needed for repair even without the help of professionals.