Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2018 July 5

= July 5 =

How common are 3 meter floors in residential buildings built in meters?
10 feet is a common distance between floors in both short and tall residential buildings built in feet (non-residential buildings often use 12 feet). Is .16 feet less an insignificant enough effect on ceiling height for 3 meters to be a common floor height? Public housing projects in my city (not sure of the British equivalent's name) are surely less than 3 meters though, they have ridiculously short floors to increase the government's rent income and discourage use of housing welfare. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:43, 5 July 2018 (UTC)


 * In the UK, the "minimum floor to ceiling height of 2.3m for at least 75% of the gross internal area" (= 7'6"). Although this is not a statutory requirement, it "may be imposed by Local Planning Authorities as a planning condition". Metrication has been a slow and painful business here, so I suspect that it's a metric conversion of an Imperial measurement. Alansplodge (talk) 19:20, 5 July 2018 (UTC)


 * The entire ceiling of the housing project apartment I saw might've been under 7.5 feet. Typical US ceiling heights are 8 or 9 feet (10 maybe more in office buildings and luxury apartments). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:38, 5 July 2018 (UTC)


 * "According to figures released by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the average five-bedroomed home built in 1920 would boast four reception rooms and occupy 3,440sq ft. An equivalent newly-built house today has three reception rooms and just 2,409sq ft, and the ceiling height has fallen from 11ft to 8ft 9in". See Daily Telegraph - New homes have shrunk by a third since the 1920s - note that there is no attempt at metric conversion, most British adults still think in old units.
 * BBC News - 'Shoebox homes' become the UK norm says: "current mass-produced housing uses the size of a standard sheet of plaster board - 2.4m - to determine ceiling height". Alansplodge (talk) 20:02, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
 * What's a reception room? This mature Australia isn't familiar with the term. HiLo48 (talk) 01:30, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Me neither. I always imagined rich people in 1800-1860s dress saying things like "would you like some tea in the reception room?" in the unusual but charming English accent. Like Masterpiece Theatre. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:33, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Remembering that we have articles on everything, I found that Reception room redirects to Drawing room, being "a room in a house where visitors may be entertained". So, three rooms for entertaining guests, even today? Wow. Those Brits must entertain a lot. HiLo48 (talk) 03:06, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * A reception room is estate agent-speak for a room where people can sit around and socialise: in everyday language, a sitting room, front/back parlour, lounge etc., depending on your location and class attitudes. A five-bedroom house is a pretty big one (the sort of place a Telegraph reader might live in or covet), so three rooms for everything except sleeping isn't unexpected. HenryFlower 09:40, 6 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Standard US sheets of postwar interior wall in houses, flats or offices are 4x8 feet (2.4384 meters). I don't know how they make sheetrock so weak and flexible they're ludicrously easy to kick through but it must be cheap or they'd still be using real plaster. This also determines the cargo bed size of America's biggest "Man on the Clapham Omnibus" cars. They're just big enough to carry a stack of these rock sheets without leaving the stern flap open or carrying them diagonally to fit between the wheel wells. The downside of this capability is burning a liter of petrol or diesel every few miles. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:46, 5 July 2018 (UTC)


 * One of the rooms in the house where I used to live was called the "morning room".  The sitting room had a serving hatch through which food could be passed from the pantry. 2A00:23C1:3180:6501:54B9:1664:8B5F:A8FA (talk) 10:28, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The bog-standard London terrace house had two "reception rooms", a "sitting room" and a "dining room". It was popular in the 1970s to knock down the dividing wall and create single a "through lounge". Modern British "shoebox houses" (See BBC link above) generally have only one reception room, often with the kitchen in one corner. Alansplodge (talk) 12:45, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Meanwhile, in a country which has used SI Units for centuries, the answer for an ordinary house seems to be 2.5 or 2.6 metres from floor to ceiling. See Forum Construire - Hauteur standard d'une maison ?. Alansplodge (talk) 12:26, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Nitpick: It's the metric system that dates to the late 18th century; it didn't become the SI until the mid-20th. --76.69.47.228 (talk) 05:45, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Quite so, the other great French idea of decimal time proved less enduring. Alansplodge (talk) 19:09, 8 July 2018 (UTC)