Size matters: What square footage is right for you?

Here’s how to calculate the square footage for home plan

            People who buy or build custom homes are more concerned with how much usable space they get and it is only a few people that actually go into the details of the square footage system before the purchase or construction. It is equally essential to know how much square footage is available to you, along with the number of bedrooms, the baths or how big and modern the kitchen is and what kind of house you want like single storey or multi strorey generally two storey duplex floor plans Indian style is popular for comfort living area.

Usually, most real estate companies include only the areas within the house that are air-conditioned or heated. This calculation method omits the attic storage, unfinished basements, garage, porches and similar spaces.

The total square footage of a house is not restricted to only the area of all the rooms; it also includes the area that the walls in between them occupy. The area occupied by the walls seems may seem negligible on an individual scale. But, when calculated in whole, it is a considerable amount that adds up the total square footage of the house. Three linear feet of an interior wall becomes one square foot and the thickness of walls would comprise of almost ten percent of the overall square footage of the entire house!

For your home plan, understanding these measurement basics is certainly important, so as to avoid any confusion with the builders during construction or buying of a house. Fire places and small mechanical closets take a tiny portion of the entire space of your home, so they can easily be avoided. Square footage needs to be measured from the outside faces of the outer walls, including the area covered by the stairs. You need to calculate square footage of spaces with a ceiling height beyond seven feet. You don’t have to count areas that open to rooms located down stairs.

You have to bear in mind that the heated square footage is usually used along with a rough estimate of the ‘cost per square foot’ for preliminary cost estimating. It is one factor of construction cost, but not everything that would decide the actual cost of your home. There are additional costs which are unrelated to the size of the house, such as landscaping costs, driveway, and appliances, to name a few.

For rough estimates, construction companies and builders use only the ‘cost per square foot’ system of calculation. They almost avoid signing a legal contract mentioning a particular ‘cost per square foot’ while building a house. In a custom built house, modifications through additions and deletions might happen at any point of time during the construction phase. Therefore, the builders would go broke if they follow the square footage way of planning a home, as there’s no exact way to find out what needs to be ordered for constructing the house and how much labor is required for building the house. Price of the raw materials keeps on varying and that would impact the overall cost of the house irrespective of the square footage.

Imagine you opt for a marble exterior wall rather than a normal wall - the costs would certainly drive up.  If you choose a specific kind of shingle which would require more labor and materials than a normal one, the cost would again be higher than the quoted amount in the planned estimate. This makes the builders quote the square footage cost within a range rather than an exact amount. The cost of the house would also vary depending on the number of bedrooms, sinks, toilets, bathrooms and flooring, roofing material as well as appliances used.

Additional Notes: Make sure that the builder is calculating the square footage for the home plan the same way as you do. Sometimes builders include garage and porch area or some would count garage area as half its square footage. Although it would dilute the overall cost while considering the average per foot cost and make the construction costs seem less, this would make things very confusing. Counting heated square footage would be a solution in this kind of situation, in order to maintain transparency.

5 things to expect from a prefab home

The home building sector is evolving quickly with latest technological advancements taking place to smooth out whatever issue was there to delay a house construction. These are non-other than prefab homes, which are economical, flexible, technologically built, designer homes, well planned, and eco-friendly. They have a long list of benefits for the home owner, apart from the quick building time.

Why don’t we delve a little deeper to know the goodies that a prefab home can offer? Here we go -

Flexy homes

When you are buying a custom prefab home, you get a wide range of choices and designs to meet your needs. They are flexible to suit your requirement both design and amenity wise. A professional builder would seamlessly offer you the best precast homes making your house building troubles vanish. As the builders are approved by the local Governing bodies, there is no stress on modifying the floor plans, construction specifications, kind of doors and windows you want (sliding glass/wooden).

Quick building time

Custom made traditional houses have a timeframe which varies depending upon different conditions (such as bad weather that would spoil the construction work). The completion time fluctuates for such homes, but precast homes have a definite timeline to deliver a complete home to the buyer.

Bad climatic condition like snow, rain and extreme chill would hold back the workers from continuing their work, thereby slowing down the process to build your house. Prefab homes are on the contrary constructed on site, after the entire structure is ready to get installed, requiring less intervention of workers.

Energy efficient & Environment-friendly

When you want to build your home that you have so fondly dreamt of, go for an option that doesn’t harm the environment. Green homes like precast structures, are made of fly ash (waste from coal power plants) that otherwise would have polluted the air. They prevent further polluting the environment and recycle the past garbage as well. They are energy efficient, because they are well insulated with porous surface, which allows the heat or cold of the outdoors from affecting the indoors. You need minimum power to heat or cool off the indoors, due to the above said characteristics of these homes.

Low-maintenance and safe

These prefab houses are low on maintenance as they are sturdily built in the factory under exact pressure and temperature to take the perfect shape and strength desired to withstand harsh climatic conditions. They are fire resistant as the main components are fly ash and steel, which are less susceptible to fire accidents.

Earthquake-resistant

Lighter homes exert less pressure on the foundation, the box structure of walls allows load-balancing during earthquakes, and storms making prefab homes a better building choice for most home owners. These houses are lighter as their building materials are not heavier than traditional brick and mortar masonry. Earthquake usually distorts the alignment of wall and foundation, thereby making the house to collapse, where the load of the wall seems higher. But, when you build your home with precast technology, it becomes better equipped to stand firm against earthquake like disasters.

House building is not a child’s play, but choosing a precast custom home would make your life easier and less stressful. You no longer need to bother about the workers turning up on time, water being stored for construction, raw materials collected in advance or the builder being on site. Prefab home builders make the things ready before starting the installation process. They even update you online about the work in progress with photographs, either on your social media or personal messages on your mobile phones. You get the advantage of giving your suggestions to them to alter or modify things that you don’t like, through comments.