If you are in the process of buying a new home or selling your old property, you have probably realized just how important it is to gain a clear and concise understanding of the logistical details that are unique to each residence. In a highly competitive housing market such as San Francisco, each square foot of property can make a difference with regards to appraisal value. In a situation where prior estimates of your home's size may have been slightly miscalculated, you may be losing money in a sale or paying too much for your next property. Understanding where and how to find the square footage of your house can have a significant impact when you enter the buying and selling phase of home ownership.
The Tax Assessor
One of the first places to look when seeking out a detailed report regarding the available square footage in your home is the tax assessor. The City and County of San Francisco Treasurer and Tax Collector maintains detailed reports of all properties within their jurisdiction. Here, you should be able to find a detailed evaluation of the property in question, including a review of its physical dimensions. While this document will be highly accurate, it is important to take note of when the evaluation was made. The reason for this is as follows: if additions or modifications have been made to the house since the filing of the report, it is possible that the square footage reported here may no longer be accurate.
Contact an Appraiser
If you don't feel comfortable going room to room measuring your property, your next best option is to contact a professional appraiser. These individuals are required to accurately measure property on a regular basis, which means you should be able to obtain the information you need. However, keep in mind that hiring an appraiser does represent an additional cost which you may or may not be willing to pursue. Perhaps one of the more attractive reasons to hire an appraiser is that this individual can help you resolve any discrepancies that may exist with reports filed with the tax assessor. If you are planning on deducting any expenses related to your home, it is essential that issues such as these be resolved as soon as possible.
A DIY Approach
Using some of the latest smartphone app technology, it is possible to complete a measurement of your property without the assistance of an appraiser. Although this method of evaluation would not serve as a legal substitute for an appraiser, it could be the right choice if your reasons for finding the square footage of your house are less formal.
Calculate a Rectangle Area
Calculator Use
Use this calculator to find the square footage, square inches, square yardage, square meters or acres for a building, home, garden or construction project. Calculate square footage, inches, yardage, meters and acres for landscape, flooring, carpet, or tiling projects to estimate area and the amount of material you will need. Also calculate the cost of materials when you enter the price per square foot, price per square inch, price per square yard or price per square meter.
Price is entered in the fields, for example, as
$ price: 3.00 per: 1 square unit: foot (ft²)
meaning $3.00 per 1 square foot
or
$ price: 25.00
per: 1000 square unit: foot (ft²)
meaning $25.00 per 1000 square feet
etc ....
If you want to calculate volume of bulk materials such as mulch or gravel you should use our calculator for cubic yards and cubic meters.
Enter measurements in US units or metric units. Calculate area from your measurements in inches (in), feet (ft), yards (yd), millimeters (mm), centimeters (cm), or meters (m). You can also enter decimal values. For example, if you have one measurement that is 7'3" you can enter that as 7.25 feet (3"/12" = 0.25 ft). If you have a measurement of 245 cm you can also enter that as 2.45 m.
How to Calculate Square Footage
Square footage is area expressed in square feet. Likewise, square yardage is area expressed in square yards. Square meters is also a common measure of area.
Assume you have a rectangular area such as a room and, for example, you want to calculate the square footage area for flooring or carpet.
The way to calculate a rectangular area is by measuring the length and width of your area then multiplying those two numbers together to get the area in feet squared (ft2). If you have on oddly shaped area, such as an L-shape, split it into square or rectanglualar sections and treat them as two separate areas. Calculate the area of each section then add them together for your total. If your measurements are in different units, say feet and inches, you can first convert those values to feet, then multiply them together to get the square footage of the area.
Measure
- Measure the sides of your area
Convert all of your measurements to feet
- If you measured in feet skip to "Calculate the Area as Square Footage"
- If you measured in feet & inches, divide inches by 12 and add that to your feet measure to get total feet
- If you measured in another unit of measure, do the following to convert to feet
- inches: divide by 12 and that is your measurement in feet
- yards: multiply by 3 and that is your measurement in feet
- centimeters: multiply by 0.03281 to convert to feet
- meters: multiply by 3.281 to convert to feet
Calculate the Area as Square Footage
- If you are measuring a square or rectangle area, multiply length times width; Length x Width = Area.
- For other area shapes, see formulas below to calculate Area (ft2) = Square Footage.
Convert among square inch, square foot, square yard and square meter
You could, for example, perform all of your measurements in inches or centimeters, calculate area in square inches or square centimeters then convert your final answer to the unit you need such as square feet or square meters.
To convert among square feet, yards and meters use the following conversion factors. For other units use our calculator for area conversions.
- Square Feet to Square Inches
- multiply ft2 by 144 to get in2
- Square Feet to Square Yards
- multiply ft2 by 0.11111 to get yd2
- Square Feet to Square Meters
- multiply ft2 by 0.092903 to get m2
- Square Yards to Square Feet
- multiply yd2 by 9 to get ft2
- Square Yards to Square Meters
- multiply yd2 by 0.836127 to get m2
- Square Meters to Square Inches
- multiply m2 by 1,550 to get in2
- Square Meters to Square Feet
- multiply m2 by 10.7639 to get ft2
- Square Meters to Square Yards
- multiply m2 by 1.19599 to get yd2
Square Footage Formulas and Images for Different Areas
Square Area
Calculate square footage for a square area
Using measurements in feet:
Area (ft2) = Side Length x Side Length
Rectangle Area
Calculate square footage for a rectangle area
Using measurements in feet:
Area (ft2) = Length x Width
Rectangle Border Area
Calculate square footage for a rectangle border area
Using measurements in feet:
Inner Area (ft2) = Length x Width
Total Area (ft2) = (Length + (2 x Border Width)) x (Width + (2 x Border Width))
Area (ft2) = Total Area - Inner Area
Circle Area
Calculate square footage for a circle area
Using measurements in feet:
Area (ft2) = Pi x (Diameter/2)^2
Pi = 3.14
Circle Border Area
Calculate square footage for a circle border area
Using measurements in feet:
Outer Diameter = Inner Diameter + (2 x Border Width)
Outer Area (ft2)
= Pi x (Outer Diameter/2)^2
Inner Area (ft2)
= Pi x (Inner
Diameter/2)^2
Area (ft2) = Outer Area - Inner Area
Pi = 3.14
Obviously, the Circle Border and Annulus are the same, just measured differently.
Annulus Area
Calculate square footage for a annulus area
Using measurements in feet:
Outer Area (ft2)
= Pi x (Outer Diameter/2)^2
Inner Area (ft2)
= Pi x (Inner Diameter/2)^2
Area (ft2) = Outer Area - Inner Area
Pi = 3.14
Obviously, the Circle Border and Annulus are the same, just measured differently.
Triangle Area
Calculate square footage for a triangle area
Using measurements in feet:
Area (ft2) = (1/4) x square root[ (a+b+c) x (b+c-a) x (c+a-b) x (a+b-c) ]
Trapezoid Area
Calculate square footage for a trapezoid area
Using measurements in feet:
Area (ft2) = ((a + b) / 2 )h