Do Your Windows Provide Enough Light And Ventilation?

This has been a problem for years and experienced architects and builders will usually spot the lighting and ventilation difficulties when they are drawing up plans or even building the home.

The biggest question you're going to have to ask yourself as an architect, homebuilder or even as the home owner, will be about the lighting and ventilation that your windows can provide. Are they going to be big enough or could they even be too big?

If the window is too big, it can create structural problems and actually weaken the strength of the home. A large window can also create heating and cooling problems as these monster windows suck the heat and cold right out of your home.

If there isn't enough natural lighting, you're going to find yourself using extra electricity and with utility costs only going up, this could be a problem and an additional expense. Finding the correct size of any window, for any room, can be easy and simple.

There's a common rule that most architects and builders use to solve this problem. Your window size should be around 7 to 10% of the square footage of floor area of the room. This will usually provide good ventilation also.

Here is an example: your bed room is 12' wide x 12' in length and if we multiply these numbers together, 12 times 12 equals 144. That gives us 144 square feet of floor area in that room.

To find 7% of the floor area, we simply multiply 144 times .07 and this will give us 10.08. Our window should occupy around 10 square feet of wall area, in the room. The minimum sized window should be at the least 3' x 3' and the maximum sized window shouldn't be any larger than a 3 foot tall by 5 foot wide window.

Here's something to remember when installing windows and any bedrooms, living rooms, family room. Most cities require a fire egress or fire escape in case there’s a fire, people should be able to jump out of the windows. Your window sizes should meet local building codes, this is very important and should always be checked, especially before any construction is about to start.