Carpet Area and Covered Area calculation for a flat

It is interesting to note that since year 2003, the actual carpet area that a buyer gets for his flat has gone down drastically at almost a percent every year i.e. a 1000 sq. flat which used to have around 800 sq.ft. of carpet area has gone down to almost 700 sq.ft. in recent times.

These are ominous signs for the buyers. The biggest rationale for this is buyer’s ignorance and non-transparency (and regulation) in the system.

It hence necessitates the need for buyers to compare two projects on the usable area based on floor plan before arriving to a conclusion.

This brings us to understanding how to calculate the usable area for a flat once you have the floor plan in front of you.

Before we move further, we need to understand the concept of super, carpet and covered area.

Carpet Area -> This is the area inside the flats where carpets can be laid.
Covered Area -> This is an indicator of built up area for the flat and includes walls as well over carpet area.
Super Area -> This is the area that includes the covered area of the flat along with common spaces being shared with other buyers like corridor space, terrace space, green space etc.

Now that things are less murkier now, we move to understanding how to calculate these:

Carpet Area calculation:

1) Keep floor plan handy.

2) Before buying, check with builder if dimensions mentioned in the floor plan include wall or not. Some good builders don’t include walls while few do. If wall is included, check whats the width of external walls (it would be either 0.45 feet or 0.9 feet). If possible, take this is in writing.

3) Convert all dimensions to feet if given in mm. Subtract half of wall width in each dimension on each side if wall is included (So, a 10 by 11 room will become 9.6 by 11.6 approx if wall is included). Ensure you do not subtract same wall twice in case two rooms are sharing the same wall.

4) Multiply dimensions of each room (Drawing+Dining+BedRoom(s)+StudyRoom+StoreRoom).

5) Multiply dimensions of Kitchen, Bathrooms.

6) Multiply dimensions of balcony.

7) Multiply dimensions of foyer, gallery space, wardrobe space or any other usable space.

8) Sum up the values from step 4 to 7 to get the carpet area for your flat.

A good builder shall provide around 75% carpet area.

Covered Area calculation:

1) Add wall width to each dimension in floor plan if wall is not already included. Else, if builder says wall is included in dimensions mentioned in floor plan, include only half of wall width.

2) Follow step 4 to 7 as above.

3) Sum up the values from step 4 to 7 to get the covered area for your flat.

A good builder shall provide around 80% covered area.

Super Area calculation:

This is a complicated aspect and the builders take full advantage of the ambiguity around what all is included as part of super area calculation.

The builders tend to increase the super area at time of possession hence the carpet to super area ratio could change later.

Builder’s practices during its previous projects could be a good indicator of what is in store for you.

Since this a vast topic in itself, we will soon follow this up with a separate topic for calculation of super area.

Comments/Feedback invited.

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Last Updated on December 29, 2014 by Go4Reviews