How Tall Is A Two-Story House?

Houses can come in all shapes and sizes, with the smallest being nothing more than the size of one room and the biggest being the grand estates that you see celebrities live in.

How Tall Is A Two-Story House?

However, for most of us building and owning a two-story house is not only something we can aspire to, but something is a great achievement.

However, when you decide to build these homes, the last thing you are probably thinking about is exactly how tall they are.

To most of us, a one-story home is a one-story home or a two-story home is a two-story, but those aren’t measurements.

They are simply phrases that dictate what a measurement should be.

So, how tall exactly is a two-story home? Is it very large? Or quite small? In this article, we seek to answer this question, so you don’t have to.

What Is A Story?

The story of a house is basically the same thing as the floor or the level of any commercial building.

If a building has several levels or different parts that are separated by vertical divisions, each of the levels will have a floor or a horizontal surface at their bottom that provides a kind of structural support that is integral for holding the building together and this is called a story.

Each story is separated by a floor, with the floor of the next level up serving as the ceiling of the previous story.

The height of the ceiling to the floor on the same level, the density of that floor, and the material from which each building is made will decide the height of each story.

The height of the story can also be determined based on the architectural design and must also take into account the structural integrity of the building itself.

For example, the lobbies (or first or ground floors of a building – depending on the country you are in) of many buildings would have a much higher ceiling and be much wider.

Not only is this aesthetically appealing, but it is also structurally prudent.

Since this floor is closer to the basement, you can keep the structural integrity of the building intact by spreading the weight of the building over a larger area closer to your foundation.

However, this is not the case for stories that are higher up, as they are further away from the foundation, they are much more precarious in terms of structural integrity.

As such, their height tends to be shorter, and their width tends to be narrower.

How Tall Is A Two-Story House?

The average height of a residential house varies from location to location and from country regulations to country regulations, even from type of house to type of house – for example, a bungalow is going to be smaller than a regular house.

Yet, despite these variations it will surprise you to note that there are no specific rules that contractors have to follow when building a home, in fact generally there are not many rules that dictate a house’s height.

As long as correct construction standards and practices are followed, then you can pretty much build it how you like.

With that said, there are averages that people tend to follow.

A single story in a house is normally around 9 to 10 feet in height or around 3 meters in total, as such the total height of a two-story house is normally around 18 to 20 feet without a roof or around 26 to 30 feet with an attic and roof.

Again, though, this depends on where you live.

If you live in England, for example, roofs are high and sloping with 3 meter floors, but simply going across to neighboring Ireland and you will find that most houses are fairly short and squat while being long, meaning that their stories are shorter and their roofs have less height to them in general.

How Do I Measure My House?

How Do I Measure My House?

This is a bit tricky to do unless you are willing to do some proper legwork to get to the bottom of the problem.

The best way to find out this information is to find the documents that detail your house being built and by what company.

This will give you an accurate description of how tall your house actually is. However, there is one very easy method to do this.

All you need is a tape measure, a hammer, a stick that is about 4-5 feet high (like a broomstick), some flat land with soft soil near your house, and a certain time of day.

Take the broomstick and stick somewhere – upright – in the ground (so it stands unaided).

Measure the height of the broomstick from base to top and then wait until the sun is at a certain angle, where the height of the upright broomstick is similar to the total length of the shadow of the broomstick.

At this point, you can get an approximate measurement of the broomstick just from the shadow, and you can do the same for the house as well.

Now, mark where the shadow of the building ends on the lawn or grass.

Once done, measure the edge of the shadow at its furthest to the exterior material of the building. This will give you an approximate height of the building.

It should be noted that this is only an approximate height and will never be a true height for the building at all.

However, the height that you measure with the shadow is only ever about a foot or two off of the actual measurement, so it is pretty accurate.

Conclusion

A two-story house is normally around 9 to 10 feet per story and about 26 to 30 feet in height in general.

However, as long as the house uses safe building standards and practices, you can make a house as tall or as short as you like with no problems – just be sure to read up on building codes before you do.

Joel Adams
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