You’re shopping for your first house or want to know if your extension ladder can reach the gutters! You’ve come to our site seeking information: how tall is a two-story home? We looked into building codes and asked builders for the truth.
Each story of a building does not need to be the same height. While 25 feet is the average height for a two-story property, this isn’t written in stone. Many factors, such as ceiling height and roof slope, will impact the overall height.
Continue reading to learn more about these aspects. We’ll discuss how high the typical ceiling is and how much height your roof provides. We’ll clear up what that phrase implies for one-story, two-story, and three-story homes.
How Tall Is a Two Story House?
A 2-story house with average height ceilings (9 feet high) is about 20 feet tall.
This takes into account any more footage from the floor’s depth or thickness (about one foot on average) and space above the ceiling (up to 2 feet in homes with drop ceilings).
Two-story residences can range from 16 feet to nearly 30 feet tall, depending on a few more variables. Two-story homes are, at the very least, 16 feet tall and might be as much as 29 feet tall, depending on a few additional criteria.
What Else Affects the Height?
Several factors determine the height of a two-story home. However, each of these elements can be divided into one of three categories:
First Floor Ceiling Height
Another aspect to consider while determining the height of a two-story house is the ground-floor ceiling area. Builders usually provide extra floor space for the first floor and ceilings in each story above it by about one foot.
This is true for both residential buildings and commercial office structures. In the first story, a two-story home with 9-feet ceilings will likely have 8-feet ceilings in the second, considering floor depth (1 foot). The height of a two-story house
Attic Space
The presence or absence of an attic and the ceiling height will influence the final height of a 2-story house. To fulfill most code requirements, the typical attic has a minimum ceiling height of at least 7 feet for at least half of the area.
Attic space reduces the height of a two-story house with an attic to about 26.5 feet tall.
Roof Style and Pitch
The height of a two-story house is determined by the style and pitch of its roof. Steep roof peaks increase the overall building height by several feet, but flat roofs (more common in commercial structures) do not raise the total height.
The total height of a two-story property can be increased by using these roofing materials:
- Gable roof
- A-frame roof
- Gambrel roof
- Mansard roof
- Saltbox roof
For example, the height of a two-story house will be somewhat greater because of any of these roof forms, which increases the overall building height by a few inches. If you’re ranking the heights of two-story houses in your area, follow local building code standards.
Some building codes only consider the structure’s height, excluding the highest “pitch break,” or point where both sides of the roof peak meet when calculating total building height.
Finding the average height of a two-story house may seem difficult or time-consuming. However, with a few measurements (floor depth, first and second-floor ceiling height, attic ceiling height, roof pitch), you can quickly estimate the building’s total height.
How Do You Measure A Two Story Home?
A two-story house may be identified by using these methods:
- Check your building plans – if you have them, they should have this information.
- Use Google Earth
- Measure the old-fashioned way.
- Do some basic trigonometry calculations.
The structure layout is self-explanatory, and simply measuring the height straight out does not require an explanation. However, calculating a home’s height using math or Google Earth necessitates some background information.
Conclusion:
The average height of a two-story house is 16 to 20 feet, or about 2 to 4 feet taller than a one-story house. However, the height of a two-story house can be affected by several factors, including the ceiling height of each floor, the attic space, and the roof style. To get an accurate measurement of a two-story house, you’ll need to consider all of these factors.
