Measuring and spacing

Getting the heating right for your room depending on selecting a radiator or storage heater that has enough wattage to heat the space. Getting the wattage right means measuring the space accurately.

Wattage and space

As a rule of thumb, you’ll need roughly 10 watts of heating power for every square foot of floor area in the room. This means a 1,500 Watt heater can be the primary heat source for an area measuring up to 150 square feet.

How to measure a space

We recommend asking someone for help with measuring a space. You will also need an extending tape measure.

  1. Measure your room or space from one wall to the opposite wall to get the width
  2. Do the same for the length
  3. Note down the measurements in cm/meters
  4. Multiply the two measurements to get the square footage

For kitchens and bathrooms

Some rooms have fixed furniture and/or units, for example, baths, hobs, and sinks. These are not ‘heated areas’ in a room so we need to take them into account when calculating the total area that needs to be heated.

  1. Measure the width and length of fixing furniture and units
  2. Multiple the width and length of each item to get the square footage
  3. Add the square footage of each together
  4. Subtract the total square footage of all the fixed furniture and units from the total room square footage

Calculating the wattage for your room

Now that you have the total square footage that needs to be heated, you can use our handy wattage calculator to see what kind of wattage output your room requires:

Wattage calculator

Need help measuring?

We are happy to come to your home or office, take measurements, and recommend a heating solution for you. This is especially helpful if you are planning to replace all or most of your existing radiators or heaters. Simply complete the form on this page:

Heating design request