RHT Builders - Myth Square Foot Pricing

29 Oriole Court
Newburgh, NY 12550
845-542-4123

Providing fine homebuilding and contracting services since 1987

Why Square Foot Pricing is not a reliable way to estimate the cost of your new home...

People often wonder why contractors are somewhat reluctant to give square foot pricing on constructed homes. It’s because square foot pricing is fine for two dimensional objects (flat surfaces like floors or ceilings), but fails to take into consideration the third dimension... height.

Example a:
Let’s say that we are building a 400 square foot room. Although it seems absurd, we are going to use a room dimension of 100 feet long by 4 feet wide. Since length multiplied by width gives you your square footage, we have a square footage of 400.

Example b:
Now let’s build another 400 square foot room, this time using the dimensions of 20 feet by 20 feet. Again we have a square footage of 400.

The square footage is equal.

Now, let’s look at building the walls of these 400 square foot rooms.

In example a), we have two walls that are 100 feet long, and two walls that are 4 feet long. Adding up the perimeter dimensions, we find that we have a total of 208 feet of lineal wall space.

Now, considering example b), we have a 400 square foot room with 4 walls, each being 20 feet long. Adding the perimeter dimensions, we have a total of 80 lineal feet of wall space.

If each wall is 8 feet high, then...

The room in example a) uses 1664 square feet of materials, and

The room in example b) uses 640 square feet of materials.

This is just a very simple illustration of why quotations based upon square footage can vary widely, and are entirely inaccurate. This does not even take into consideration that wall heights may vary, there may be vaulted ceilings, more or less doors or windows, and all of the related trim items that go along with it.

Conclusion: The numbers tell the story.

Obviously, with a difference of 1224 square feet of material, the two 400 square foot rooms use vastly different amounts of materials, of course example a) would be built with significantly greater cost. Consequently, it is unreasonable to assume that square foot pricing is reliable. Be fair to yourself, and to your prospective contractor(s) by taking these examples into consideration when you price the construction costs of your project.