Building Height

guest · April 18th, 2002, 04:52 AM

When trying to estimate the height of a building, is there a good measurement to use on a per floor basis? For instance: assuming each floor is ten feet, then a 30 story building is around 300 feet. I understand that there isn't one right answer, but looking for a good number to use when I estimate the height.

Cheers...

guest · April 18th, 2002, 05:09 AM

It depends on what the building was built for.

**BASE_689** · April 18th, 2002, 05:31 AM

Yes, indeed, it's a good estimate supposing that a floor is 3 m - 10 ft high :-) !!!! My experience (not enormous, to be honest...) is that such an assumption is conservative: i.e., the actual height (measured by a laser rangefinder) is always (at least, until now!) higher than the estimate coming from multiplying the number of floors by 10 ft.
But...
Please, please, please... ...do not jump a building having ONLY assumed its height with the above multiplication :'( !!!
But the above estimate is fantastic to pick up the right buildings to be worth of being measured by a laser rangefinder later on }> !!!

Stay safe out there
Blue Skies and Soft Walls
BASE #689 :7

imported_mknutson · April 18th, 2002, 05:44 AM

Hotels tend to be only 7' to 9' floors, when offices tend to be 9' to 15' floors.

So I would say this:

Ambulance ride = $300.00
Broken leg (if you get lucky) = $500.00 deductible
Loss of work = $1,000.00+

Very conservitive total: $1,800.00

Range finder: $250.00

Jolly Jumper · April 18th, 2002, 07:23 AM

I am an arkitekt..... I recomend to try to get hold of som blueprints (section or elevation) with a spesific scale (f. eks. 1:200, 1:500 ) Since floor to floor hights vary a lot, even within one building I would never trust counting floors. Drawings should be possible to get by contacting planingoffice, the developer, owner or the arkitekts office. Say you are an arkitekt/enginering student. Never trust what the owner or user of the building tells you (they probably would brag!) There is a lot of presure to get the floor to floor hights down due to cost! The most expencive part of the building beeing the outer "skin". In most cases the10ft estimate is conservative! but the "in most cases" would worry me! If I was not able to get the drawings I would sertainly pay for the laser thing!!!:7 :D

**crwper** · April 18th, 2002, 08:16 AM

Appartment buildings are also usually around 8' per floor. If you want to count floors...

It's usually pretty easy to get into the stairwell with a measuring tape. Measure the height of several stairs (if you measure 10 stairs and divide, your error in measurement will be 1/10 what you would get measuring just one stair) and multiply the per-stair height by the number of stairs per floor. This will at least make your estimate somewhat more accurate.

I used this method before I got a rangefinder... One building I estimated to be 265 feet turned out to be 285. Another I estimated to be 250 feet turned out to be 267.

Rangefinders are great. Using Pythagoras, from a hundred feet away, you can estimate the height within a couple of yards. If it looks promising, when you get to the top you can shoot down and get an estimate within about one yard.

Michael