Metric Floor Plan Drawing Set

Scale for Floor Plans

By Meg Escott

Understanding calibration for floor plans is a really useful skill when yous're edifice or remodeling your home.

Scale drawings are an indispensable part of your building or remodeling home projection. You'll need to be able to read them to understand and requite your approval for the design of your new home.

The focus of this page is on using scale to read floor plans. Check out how to draw floor plans for a discussion on using scale if you're drawing your ain flooring programme.

scale for floor plans

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

On this page we'll embrace...

What units of measure is my floor program using?
What scale is my flooring plan using?
Printing your flooring programme to the right scale
Figure out the real size of something on your floor program

Before we get started on scale for flooring plans, we demand beginning to talk about units.

What units of measure is my floor programme using?

The first thing to effigy out is if the calibration on your floor program relates to feet and inches (the imperial system) or relates to millimeters, centimeters and meters (the metric arrangement).

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

Earlier y'all go any further, effigy out what system, imperial or metric, your drawings are using. Look to see what units the dimensions on the floor plan are marked in.

What scale is my floor plan using?

If your floor plan has a championship block, the scale should exist indicated there. It should tell you lot what the calibration is for a detail paper size.

The calibration for floor plans tin be shown in 2 different means:

As equivalent measurements, eg 1/8" = 1' or 1cm = 1m, "an eighth of an inch represents 1 foot" or "1cm represents 1m"
As a ratio eg 1:96 or 1:100, "one to forty eight" or "i to one hundred"

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

scale for floor plans metric scale 1:100 This title block is proverb the drawing is to scale 1:100 when printed on A1 paper

Common scales for imperial floor plans (anxiety and inches)

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

Common scales for metric floor plans (mm, cm, thousand)

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

Architects tend to piece of work in millimeters, but this doesn't modify the meaning of the scales above. For example, using the scale ane:100, maxim 1mm represents 100mm is the same as saying 1cm represents 100cm.

No scale in the title block? Await for a calibration bar

If there'due south no title block, another fashion to notice the scale for flooring plans is to await for a calibration bar.

scale for floor plans scale bars Examples of calibration bars. Top is imperial, bottom is metric.

Working out the scale from an imperial calibration bar

Hither's what you demand to do to work out the scale from the scale bar:

Measure out the length of the scale bar - we're looking at the tiptop bar and let'south say it measures three 3/4 inches.

This tells us that 3 3/iv inches (or 3.75 inches) represents 30 pes (the length of the bar).

30 foot = 30 x 12 = 360 inches.

And then we at present know that 3.75 inches represents 360 inches.

Then ane inch represents (360 / 3.75) = 96 inches.

You can see higher up that we need to convert fractions of inches into decimals. To make that a bit easier I've written them out here.

Working out the scale from a metric scale bar

Mensurate the length of the scale bar - for the bottom bar, allow'due south say it measures 10cm.

This tells u.s.a. that 10cm represents 10m.

So i cm represents (10 / 10) = 1m.

Much simpler for the metric organisation!

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

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

To summate what 1ft in real life is on the plan, divide the kitchen countertop measurement on the program past 2.

To calculate what 1m in real life is on the plan, divide the kitchen countertop measurement past 60, and then multiply by 100.

This will requite you a crude idea of the dimensions and scale that you lot're dealing with on the floor plan.

Printing your floor plan to the correct calibration

When you lot're reading a flooring program yous might be able to become near of what you lot want to know by looking at the flooring plan on screen.

If you want to have authentic measurements your best bet is to get a print out of your flooring plan. If you're looking at drawings that are meant to be printed on large format paper, this can pose a problem because it'south unlikely you've got like shooting fish in a barrel access to a big format printer.

Here's a few options for getting a impress out of your floor plan.

Ask your architect or blueprint professional to provide you lot with a set of drawings printed out.
Ship your drawings to a printer/graphics store - cheque that they take a printer big enough to handle the paper size before y'all transport the files.
Impress out a section of the floor plan to calibration onto a size of paper that's convenient for the printer you have access to. Print a department of a pdf floor programme to calibration.

Figure out the real size of something on a flooring programme

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

In that location are two options for this:

Using a simple ruler and doing a scrap of maths.
Using an architectural scale

Scale conversions

Allow's do a few examples of scale conversions.

Scale for flooring plans imperial conversion example...

Let's say nosotros're looking at a flooring program and the scale is 1:48.

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

Floor plan length = 9 and one/eighth inches or 9.125 inches
Floor program width = 3 and 1/eighth inches or iii.125 inches

Real size length = (3.125 x 48) = 150 inches or 12 human foot 6 inches
Existent size width = (9.125 10 48) = 438 inches or 36 human foot vi inches

Yous might find this tabular array to convert fractions of inches to decimals useful.

Top tip

Conversion in royal scales takes quite a few taps on a calculator, and information technology'due south non much better on the bulk of online scale converters. I've fix some super quick, minimum click royal scale converters that are available to HPH members. Find out how to join.

Calibration for floor plans metric conversion example...

Let's say we're looking at a floor programme and the scale is i:50.

We measure the length and width of the bedroom on the flooring plan.

Floor program length and width (square room) = half dozen.8cm

Real size length and width = (half-dozen.viii 10 50) = 340cm or 3.4m

Check that the scale conversion makes sense

In one case you lot've washed a scale conversion calculation just have a call up to make sure it makes sense. Is your reply roughly what you expected it to exist?

Using an architectural calibration

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

The beauty of an using an architects scale to read scale for flooring plans is that yous don't need to do calculations to measure dimensions on your flooring plan.

There's a groovy video to explicate how to use an architect's scale...

A tip for using your architect's scale

Architect'southward scales have several scales and if you put your architects calibration down information technology can be like shooting fish in a barrel to lose track of where the scale you lot're using is.

Try putting a clip on your calibration with a piece of paper with an arrow towards the zilch of the scale you're using. This makes information technology very quick to get right dorsum to where you lot demand to exist with your architects scale.

how to read floor plans architectural scale with clip

You can see how this prune is pointing towards the zero on the 1/4 inch to 1 foot scale.

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

Length in inches	Decimal equivalent
ane/4 inch	0.25
two/iv inch (same as one/2 inch)	0.v
3/4 inch	0.75

Length in inches	Decimal equivalent
i/viii inch	0.25
ii/eight inch (same equally 1/iv inch)	0.25
3/8 inch	0.375
four/8 inch (same every bit 1/2 inch)	0.5
5/viii inch	0.625
6/8 inch (aforementioned as 3/4 inch)	0.75
7/8 inch	0.875

Length in inches	Decimal equivalent
one/16 inch	0.0625
2/16 inch (same as 1/viii inch)	0.125
3/xvi inch	0.1875
4/xvi inch (same as 1/4 inch)	0.25
five/xvi inch	0.3125
6/16 inch (aforementioned as 3/8 inch)	0.375
7/16 inch	0.4375
8/16 inch (aforementioned as ane/ii inch)	0.5
9/16 inch	0.5625
10/16 inch (same as 5/8 inch)	0.625
11/16 inch	0.6825
12/16 inch (same every bit 3/4 inch)	0.75
13/16 inch	0.8125
14/16 inch (same equally 7/viii inch)	0.875
15/16 inch	0.9375