How To Draw Floor Plans To Scale

Scale for Flooring Plans

Past Meg Escott

Understanding calibration for floor plans is a actually useful skill when you lot're building or remodeling your home.

Scale drawings are an indispensable part of your building or remodeling home project. Yous'll need to exist able to read them to sympathise and requite your approving for the design of your new home.

The focus of this page is on using calibration to read flooring plans. Check out how to draw floor plans for a discussion on using scale if yous're drawing your own floor plan.

scale for floor plans

This page forms part of the how to read business firm plans serial.

On this page we'll comprehend...

What units of measure is my floor program using?
What scale is my floor plan using?
Press your floor plan to the right scale
Effigy out the real size of something on your floor plan

Before we get started on calibration for flooring plans, we demand first to talk about units.

What units of measure is my flooring plan using?

The beginning thing to effigy out is if the scale on your floor plan relates to anxiety and inches (the imperial system) or relates to millimeters, centimeters and meters (the metric system).

This unremarkably depends on the region of your home. If y'all're in the US you're likely to be working in the imperial system. If you're in the UK, Ireland or Australia, it'southward probably the metric system. Canada is a flake of a mix but usually metric.

Before you get any further, figure out what system, imperial or metric, your drawings are using. Look to encounter what units the dimensions on the floor program are marked in.

What scale is my floor plan using?

If your floor plan has a title cake, the scale should be indicated there. It should tell you what the scale is for a particular paper size.

The scale for flooring plans can be shown in ii unlike ways:

As equivalent measurements, eg 1/eight" = i' or 1cm = 1m, "an eighth of an inch represents 1 foot" or "1cm represents 1m"
Equally a ratio eg one:96 or ane:100, "one to forty eight" or "one to i hundred"

scale for floor plans imperial scale 1:96 This championship block is saying the cartoon is to calibration i:96 when printed on Arch East paper

scale for floor plans metric scale 1:100 This championship cake is maxim the cartoon is to calibration 1:100 when printed on A1 paper

Common scales for regal floor plans (feet and inches)

one/4 inch to a foot which means 1 inch on the paper represents 48 inches in real size (1:48).
one/8 inch to a pes which means 1 inch on the paper represents 96 inches in real size (1:96).
i/16 inch to a foot which ways 1 inch on the paper represents 192 inches in existent size (1:192).

Mutual scales for metric floor plans (mm, cm, 1000)

2cm to 1m which means 2cm on the paper represents 100cm (or 1m) in existent size (ane:50).
1cm to 1m which means 1cm on the newspaper represents 1oocm (or 1m) in real size (1:100).
1cm to 2m which means 1cm on the paper represents 200cm (or 2m) in real size (ane:200).

Architects tend to work in millimeters, but this doesn't change the significant of the scales above. For example, using the scale one:100, saying 1mm represents 100mm is the aforementioned as maxim 1cm represents 100cm.

No scale in the title block? Wait for a scale bar

If there's no title block, another way to find the scale for floor plans is to look for a scale bar.

scale for floor plans scale bars Examples of scale confined. Elevation is imperial, bottom is metric.

Working out the calibration from an imperial scale bar

Here'due south what you lot demand to do to work out the scale from the calibration bar:

Measure the length of the scale bar - we're looking at the elevation bar and let's say it measures 3 3/4 inches.

This tells us that 3 three/iv inches (or three.75 inches) represents xxx foot (the length of the bar).

30 foot = xxx x 12 = 360 inches.

And then nosotros now know that 3.75 inches represents 360 inches.

So 1 inch represents (360 / 3.75) = 96 inches.

You can see above that we demand to catechumen fractions of inches into decimals. To brand that a bit easier I've written them out here.

Working out the scale from a metric scale bar

Measure the length of the scale bar - for the bottom bar, let'due south say information technology measures 10cm.

This tells us that 10cm represents 10m.

So 1 cm represents (x / ten) = 1m.

Much simpler for the metric system!

What if there's no scale for the floor plan?

If you're looking at a floor plan with no calibration or dimensions marked here'due south a trick. If the kitchen is marked in the floor plan, a standard kitchen countertop is 2ft or 60cm deep. Then if you mensurate how deep the countertop is on the program, that's what 2ft or 60cm is equivalent to.

To calculate what 1ft in existent life is on the plan, divide the kitchen countertop measurement on the programme by 2.

To calculate what 1m in real life is on the plan, divide the kitchen countertop measurement past threescore, then multiply past 100.

This will give yous a rough idea of the dimensions and scale that you're dealing with on the floor program.

Printing your floor program to the right scale

When you're reading a floor programme y'all might be able to get most of what you desire to know by looking at the floor plan on screen.

If you lot want to accept authentic measurements your best bet is to get a print out of your floor programme. If you're looking at drawings that are meant to be printed on large format paper, this can pose a trouble because it's unlikely you've got piece of cake access to a big format printer.

Here's a few options for getting a print out of your flooring plan.

Ask your builder or design professional person to provide y'all with a set of drawings printed out.
Send your drawings to a printer/graphics store - cheque that they have a printer large enough to handle the paper size earlier you transport the files.
Print out a department of the floor plan to scale onto a size of newspaper that's convenient for the printer you lot have access to. Print a department of a pdf floor plan to scale.

Figure out the real size of something on a floor plan

OK, then you lot know what units you're working in, and you lot know what the scale for flooring plans is, you're fix to employ calibration conversion to figure out the real life size of something on your floor programme.

There are two options for this:

Using a simple ruler and doing a bit of maths.
Using an architectural calibration

Scale conversions

Let's do a few examples of scale conversions.

Scale for flooring plans imperial conversion instance...

Allow's say we're looking at a flooring plan and the calibration is 1:48.

We measure the length and width of the open plan living space on the floor plan.

Floor program length = 9 and i/8th inches or 9.125 inches
Floor programme width = 3 and 1/8th inches or three.125 inches

Real size length = (3.125 10 48) = 150 inches or 12 foot 6 inches
Real size width = (ix.125 10 48) = 438 inches or 36 human foot 6 inches

Y'all might notice this tabular array to convert fractions of inches to decimals useful.

Elevation tip

Conversion in imperial scales takes quite a few taps on a estimator, and it's not much improve on the majority of online scale converters. I've gear up some super quick, minimum click royal calibration converters that are available to HPH members. Observe out how to join.

Scale for floor plans metric conversion example...

Let'south say we're looking at a flooring programme and the scale is 1:l.

We measure the length and width of the chamber on the floor program.

Floor plan length and width (foursquare room) = vi.8cm

Existent size length and width = (6.8 10 50) = 340cm or 3.4m

Check that the scale conversion makes sense

In one case you've done a scale conversion calculation just have a think to brand sure it makes sense. Is your answer roughly what you expected it to be?

Using an architectural scale

Let's have a look at how to mensurate on a floor programme using an architectural scale.

The beauty of an using an architects scale to read scale for floor plans is that y'all don't demand to exercise calculations to measure out dimensions on your floor plan.

There's a great video to explicate how to employ an architect's scale...

A tip for using your architect's calibration

Architect's scales have several scales and if yous put your architects scale downwardly information technology can be easy to lose track of where the scale you lot're using is.

Try putting a prune on your scale with a piece of paper with an pointer towards the zero of the calibration you're using. This makes it very quick to get right back to where you need to be with your architects scale.

how to read floor plans architectural scale with clip

You tin can see how this clip is pointing towards the naught on the one/4 inch to 1 foot scale.

how to read floor plans architectural scale with clip qaurter inch scale

Length in inches	Decimal equivalent
1/iv inch	0.25
two/iv inch (same as 1/2 inch)	0.5
3/4 inch	0.75

Length in inches	Decimal equivalent
ane/viii inch	0.25
two/8 inch (same as 1/4 inch)	0.25
iii/8 inch	0.375
4/viii inch (same as 1/2 inch)	0.5
5/eight inch	0.625
6/eight inch (same as 3/4 inch)	0.75
vii/8 inch	0.875

Length in inches	Decimal equivalent
1/16 inch	0.0625
two/16 inch (same as 1/8 inch)	0.125
iii/16 inch	0.1875
4/xvi inch (same as i/4 inch)	0.25
five/16 inch	0.3125
6/xvi inch (same equally three/viii inch)	0.375
7/16 inch	0.4375
8/16 inch (same as 1/2 inch)	0.v
9/16 inch	0.5625
x/16 inch (same as 5/viii inch)	0.625
xi/16 inch	0.6825
12/16 inch (same every bit 3/4 inch)	0.75
13/16 inch	0.8125
14/16 inch (same as 7/8 inch)	0.875
15/16 inch	0.9375