Calculating Square Footage

[frugalityisgood]

I need help figuring out an easy way to calculate measurements. I'm trying to to calculate the square footage of the front of my house. But the front of my house is not a rectangle or square. It goes to a peak. I can't remember ever learning how to do this in school.

The house is 24'8" wide. The peak is on the far left side of the house. From the ground to the top of the peak is 15'8". The bottom of the peak from corner to corner is 14'4". Which leaves the remaining part rectangle section at 10'4". It basically looks like this.
/\
/ \
/ \___________
| |
| |
|________________|

How do I calculate the square footage of that?

[sdrjeolsen]

You have to take the area of the rectangle and add it to the area of the triangle. I would do the math, but don't know the height of the rectangle or the height of the triangle (I only know that togther they measure 15' 8"). The area of the rectangle is figured by A= bh which would be 24.75 x the height of the rectangle. Formula for area of triangle is 1/2 base x height. Which would be .5 x 14.33 x height. Add that to the area of the rectangle.

[frugalityisgood]

I found this site and it was helpful http://homebuying.about.com/od/reale..._footage_3.htm

I used a measurement from the ground to the bottom of the triangle peak 9.8' minus 15.8'. Which meant the height of the triangle part of the house as 6'. I then multiplied the 6' by the base of the triangle which was 14.8'. Which gave me 44.4 sq ft. Then I multiplied width of the house 24'8" by height of the front to the bottom of the triangle which was 9'8". The result was 243.04 sq ft. I then added that with the sq ft of the triangle portion. The result was 287.44 Sq ft.

I still haven't found a calculator that will make it easy to add measurements.