Houses come in all shapes and sizes. While it’s easy to know how many bedrooms, windows, and floors are in a house, how much it weighs is a bit harder to find out. Knowing how heavy your house is can help with the overall planning and construction. It also helps if you’re going to relocate your entire home.
To determine the weight of a house, you need to think outside the box. After all, you can’t just put it on a scale and weigh it!
Today, we’re going to show you how professionals uncover the answer, “How much does a house weigh?”
Keep reading to find out more.
2 Easy Ways to Determine the Weight of a House
Knowing the weight of a house can shed light on many important factors. Say you’re building, renovating, or adding an extension to your home, knowing the weight of the entire house can help you work out what materials would be better and which to stay away from.
Besides, it can come in handy if you plan on moving your home. You have to know the overall weight so you can decide if the soil will work for you.
To figure out how much a house weighs, there are two ways to do it.
Method #1
In the construction world, a rule of thumb is that houses weigh 200 pounds per square foot for a one-story house. So, for a 2,000-square-foot home, that comes out to 400,000 pounds.
If it’s two stories, it goes up to 275 pounds per square foot. For a three-story house, the weight goes up to roughly 350 pounds per square foot.
These figures don’t include the weight of the concrete garage or basement floor. They do, however, include the foundations of each house. Typically, materials used in manufacturing a foundation can weigh anywhere from 160,000 to 200,000 pounds.
Small Homes
Houses that are 1,000 square feet or less fall into the ‘small homes’ category. They have an average weight of around 50,000 to 100,000 pounds.
These numbers also include the foundations. However, that’s not considering any features that add to the weight, such as masonry work or tile roofing.
Mobile Homes
Mobile homes built before 1980 weigh less than those built in recent years. This makes their weights vary a great deal.
Based on research carried out on the standard mobile home, it comes to about 50 pounds per square foot. In other words, a mobile home with dimensions 16 x 80 feet built after 1980 should weigh approximately 64,000 pounds. That said, bear in mind that this doesn’t include the house’s contents.
Method #2
The second method requires weighing the individual components of the house. Then, you total up all the numbers to get an approximate average weight.
Floors
For example, houses in the past were constructed with heavier, sturdier materials. Many were made with floorboards rather than plywood.
A typical plywood sheet that measures 4 x 8 feet and a width of 3/4 inches, weighs almost 61 pounds. This means that softwood plywood weighs a little less than two pounds per square foot for every inch of thickness.
A 3/4-inch thick sheet of hardwood plywood weighs slightly more than 67 pounds. Each sheet is 4 x 8 feet, which makes it out to be nearly three pounds per square inch.
Walls
In the past, contractors relied more on the heftier plaster walls and lath instead of today’s efficient drywall. To put things into better perspective, plaster weighs an average of 11 pounds per square foot.
Then, you have drywall. With a width of a 1/4-inch, drywall weighs nearly 1 pound per square foot of house. Even the thickest drywall, which measures 5/8-inch, doesn’t come close to the 11 pounds of plaster. 5/8-inch drywall weighs around 2 pounds per square foot.
Another example is masonry work, which adds a sizable amount of extra weight. Take one brick with dimensions of 9 x 4 inches. It weighs a little less than seven pounds.
So, if you know that one pallet has 500 bricks, see how many pallets you used, then do the calculations.
Roofs
A tile roof means it’s made from either clay, concrete, or slay. All these materials are natural and recyclable, which is great for the environment. Yet, their weight is substantially higher than many other tile options.
On average, concrete roof tiles weigh anywhere between 600 to 650 pounds per square foot. Some even go as high up as 800 to 1000 pounds. Bear in mind that for every roofing square, you’ll need about 6 to 8 tiles, depending on their dimensions.
That’s higher than other types of lightweight tiles, such as asphalt or synthetic slate shingles. Let’s say that a bundle of asphalt shingles consists of three tabs. This bundle weighs anywhere between 40 and 80 pounds. To cover a space of 100 square feet of roof, you need three bundles that can weigh from 120 to 240 pounds.
Steel and aluminum roof tiles are also considered a lighter choice by contractors. Metal panels come in a wide range of gauges or thicknesses, which range from 20 to 29.
26-gauge metal roofing tiles weigh around one pound per square foot. The 29-gauge tiles weigh even less, weighing approximately between 0.6 to 0.65 pounds per square foot.
Another choice for lightweight tiles is aluminum. They weigh 0.7 pounds per square foot. Yet, they’re considered to be one of the strongest and most durable materials used for roofing.
Contents of the Home
A standard way of determining the weight of the house contents, experts use a simple equation. Take the number of full rooms and multiply it by 1,000 pounds.
Let’s say you have two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Five full rooms multiplied by 1,000 comes out to 5,000 pounds.
Next, take this number and add it up with the previous numbers you’ve calculated. That should give you the full weight of your house with the contents as well.
A Final Note
You now have all the necessary info to answer your question, “How much does a house weigh?” It may seem like there are a lot of details to consider. Yet, it’s easy to find out your home’s weight by doing a few simple calculations.
First, establish the total square footage of the house and the number of full rooms and stories. Next, get a pencil, paper, and a calculator, and you’re ready to weigh your house!