The square meter is represented under the following symbol: m2 and corresponds to the area inside a square whose sides measure 1 meter. In addition, it is considered as the basic unit of surfaces within the International System of Units. If you want to know more information about this system, you can take a look at the following link.
What is the use of knowing how to calculate square meters?
This measurement is very important for calculating three-dimensional spaces. For example, if you move house, you will need to know the square meters of your home to know how much the furniture that you can place inside it will occupy and how many will fit in each room without giving the feeling that you are locked in in a shop or garage.
Surely this article will be useful to you: How to Measure the Square Meters of a Room.
You will also need to know it if you hire a painter for your home. The budgets of the painters are usually established based on the square meters, and sometimes we get confused and do not understand how much surface they are really going to paint.
In this post we propose a simple way for you to know how to find out the square meters of an area and you can make your own calculations. You will never doubt again on this subject. Let’s see how to do it. Let’s get started!
What do you need to calculate the square meters?
We are going to need:
- A meter, tape measure, ruler… depending on the size of the surface whose square meters we want to find out
How to calculate the square meters of a flat surface:
This type of measurement is what we will use when we want to find out the size of a wall, for example, to know how much it would cost us to paint them or how many square meters of curtain we need for your window.
- It is best to use a plastic tape measure. Those that we normally use to measure a room. They are usually retractable and have a metallic finish, a kind of plate, which you can use to fix the meter, without the need for help, in the corners of the walls or in other places. The advantage of it being retractable is that it will take on a straight, very stiff shape when you have extended the meter to the length you need to measure. For this reason, if you don’t have someone to lend you a hand, you can manage on your own thanks to this function. In addition, they have a lock that stops the tape output at the point that most interests you.
- Extend your tape and measure the length or length of the piece whose square footage you want to calculate. When you do so, you must include both the meters and the centimeters of which it is made up. If the length is too long and your meter does not have enough tape, you can measure by sections. You only have to approach the place where the meter ends, write down the amount of distance and continue measuring from there what is left until you reach the end. Now you only have to add both figures to find the total result.
- It’s time to measure the width. We must do it in the same way that we have measured the length. When we have both measurements we have to write them down in our notebook so as not to forget them.
- Next, we multiply the width by the length. The result we obtain will be the square meters of the surface. For example, if we have a wall that is 2.75 m high and 3 m long, the result will be an area of 8.25 m.
How to calculate the square meters of the surface of a room:
This is very useful, for example, if we want to paint the room to know how many liters of paint per square meter we have to buy. In addition, it is ideal to take into account the available space and place the furniture in a balanced way.
- In this case, what we have to do is calculate the surface of each of the walls that make up our room. We use the technique that we have learned in the previous step, that is, we find out the width and length of the wall and multiply them to find the square meters.
- Once we have each of the results, the next step will consist of adding the surface of the 4 walls. The result that we will obtain will correspond to the total area of that room in square meters.
- For example, if we have 4 walls that are identical, that is, 2.75 m high and 3 m long each, we will find their surface area and add them. In this case we should add 8.25 four times (or multiply it by 4 in this case since the size is the same in all cases). The total square meters of that room would be 33m2.
Tips for calculating square meters
The applications are endless and to give a new air to your home, knowing the square meters is essential.
- Although the units of measure vary, the technique remains the same. It doesn’t matter if they are yards, centimeters or feet. The formula is universal.
- If you have to convert measurements from one metric system to another, make sure you do it right or the result you get will be wrong.