Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Apr 12, 2016 10:39 am My question has to do with how the living area is measured. I am planning to build a home off the plan. I have negotiated a price for a 4 bedroom home having 160m2 living area and the builder has come up with draft floor plan. However, I observe that in the plan, the total space enclosed by the building, measuring from the outside of the external walls but excluding garage, alfresco and porch is 162.8736m2. Also, by my calculations, the external walls are 14.755m2. So, it seems the total living area inside the external walls is actually 148.1186m2, which falls 12m2 short of 160m2. I am concerned that I may be getting short-changed in this plan. Could you advise if my understanding of what constitutes the living area is wrong or alternatively, provide some guidance on how to determine the living area. Re: How to calculate the living area 2Apr 12, 2016 12:25 pm It all comes down to definitions, and what the area is claimed to be for. However, generally when a builder looks at total building area, dividing it up into categories of living, garage, porch etc, there isn't a category for walls. So the "living" area will include the area of the external walls adjacent to the living area, and half the wall between the living and the garage. The area of the walls between porch and living might be shared between the two categories. This allows the builders to advertise a bigger number for their "area", and also means that you can add up each of the categories and arrive at the full area of the house. But when talking about the area of a specific room, the area often won't include the walls, but will generally include the plasterboard, as the measurements on the plans are to the frames. 3 5594 CDC Housing Code 3 When to apply Floor Area external face of wall vs Gross Floor Area internal face of wall. Reading thru CDC Housing Code 3, lets take a lot 915sqm.… 0 16564 I would be wary. Is you site demilished but nothing else done? Sounds like liquidity problems to me. Our builder did the same. Got hundreds of thousands of dollars of… 2 15409 |