How To Measure A Roof With Google Maps

How To Measure A Roof Using Google Earth

Its actually a simple process to get the ballpark square footage of a roof with Google Earth. Using Google is great for a rough estimate, but when youre ready to order the materials you should take accurate field measurements of the job. In order to make things easy for you we have created a step by step guide and even created a video.

To begin, go to Google Earth and click to Launch Earth. Search for your homes address and youre ready to go!

To get multiple views of your roof, you can:

• Use the scroll wheel on your mouse to zoom in and out.
• Left click and drag to move the image around.
• Rotate the camera by clicking on the scroll wheel and dragging on the mouse.

What Is Roof Measuring Software

Roof measuring software is a type of construction software that helps roofing contractors quickly measure construction plans and determine the roof dimensions. Some roof measuring software utilizes rooftop satellite images from sources such as Google Maps or Google Earth to help roofers measure existing roofs for re-roof jobs.

How To Measure The Roof Using Google Earth

There are many great benefits to using Google Earth to measure your roof but nothing is as good as using DIYs satellite roof measurement. The first of which is that you dont even have to go up on the roof. This can make it even safer to do your measuring and it also removes a level of guessing to your calculation.

To begin with, youre going to go to the app on your mobile device, or you will need to go to Google Earth on your laptop or desktop computer. There are many options here and youll want to select the one that allows you to enter the address. You can also zoom the map and click on the starting point of the roof you wish to select. After youve done this, you can click along the outer edge of the roof that you wish to calculate the area for.

Roofing Measurements Using Google Earth

Each time you add points, the area will update and there is a box below that will convert this into acres, meters, kilometers, miles, and finally, square feet. It will also give you the perimeter of the shape of the roof.

Using this tool will be very helpful for you in finding out the acreage or the tract of land of your property. It will also give you the square footage of your roof and any other areas that youre wanting to estimate. You can even embed this tool on a website that you own.

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Calculate Your Roof Pitch

The pitch of the roof is how steep it is, and this is an important figure to know as you work on your calculations. Pitch equals the roofs rise over its run.

You can calculate your roofs pitch by measuring from the edge of the roof over 12 inches to see the altitude over the roof line . Youll need a slope multiplier to help with this calculation. Choose the slope multiplier that correlates with your pitch slope.

How Drones And Ai Are Being Used To Create Accurate Roof Measurements

Capturing roof and building façade measurements has evolved significantly over the last decade. For years, the only way to capture this information was to have someone climb up a ladder and manually measure a roof or building façade with a tape measure.

In the late 2000s, companies like EagleView came along and pioneered the usage of aerial & satellite imagery to derive roof measurements. While this was a huge improvement over previous measurement methods, the rapid development of drone hardware has made it possible to produce accurate measurements using an out-of-the-box drone.

Why Use Drones for Roof Measurements?One of the main benefits of drones is their size and maneuverability. This feature allows them to fly a few feet away from various building types and capture high-resolution imagery for residential, commercial, flat and metal roofs.

How Does it Work?Once a drone inspection has been completed by a pilot in our on-demand network or by an in-house carrier pilot using our drone inspection software platform, all of the photos from the inspection are encrypted and uploaded into Betterviews cloud storage system. Photogrammetry software, powered by a lot of computing power, processes this imagery into a 3D point cloud, 3D model, and 2D orthomosaic map . The 3D point cloud data is then interpreted to produce measurements, such as:

• Perimeter
• Pitch

Sample Betterview Roof Measurement Report

For more information on our roof measurement reports, email us today at:

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How To Measure A Roof

This article was co-authored by David Bitan. David Bitan is a roofing professional, licensed contractor, and the owner and founder of Bumble Roofing based in Southern California. With over 12 years of construction industry experience, David specializes in restoring, repairing, and maintaining residential, commercial, and industrial roofs. With over 60 years of combined experience, Bumble Roofing provides easy, friendly services to structures including residential, commercial, industrial, multi-family, and government buildings along with hospitals, hotels, and churches.There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 339,713 times.

Measuring your roof is the first step in a successful re-roofing project. You can actually get an estimate of your roof’s measurements from the ground if you’d rather not climb a ladder and get up on the roof yourself. Otherwise, you can climb up onto your roof to take more accurate measurements. Either way, we’ve got you covered! This article will walk you through each process step-by-step.

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Below, there is a simple triangle, and the math used to work out how to make a proper measurement. Once you work through the basic triangle, we will review a typical roof, and how to apply some simple math to calculate how much material you will need for a roof used in our hypothetical example.

1 roof square = 100 square feet The length times the height of a triangle is twice its area . So if you divide your answer of a product of length times height by two, you will get the area of a triangle. /2 = Area

In Figure above: l=30 feet h=12 feet /2 = 180 square feet

Now that the basic concept has been covered, lets take a look at a more complex roofing system. In this overhead view you see both a hip-end section, and gable ends. With a more complex roof such is this one, it is highly recommended that you make a basic sketch. By doing so, it will be easier to mark your measurements, and calculate the necessary materials for the project. For this example we will break this roof up into sections labeled A through E.

In the figure B. above, a sketched portion is a basic triangle. As we did in the first example, measure the length of the eaves, and the vertical line from the eaves half way point to the peak. Multiply these numbers, and then divide the answer by two./2 = 270 square feet

S1 = /2 = 135 square feetS2 = 50 × 15 = 750 square feetS3 = /2 = 135 square feet

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How To Measure Your Roof From The Top Of The Structure

The most accurate way to measure your roof is by being on top of the roof itself. You can make sure each roof sections slope area is accounted for. Youll need some graph paper, measuring tape, and a calculator. For our example, well use a hip roof, though you can use this technique to measure any shape roof with varying complexity.

Search With The Roof Area Calculator

Accounting for dormer windows and other structures that might share a different pitch, the first step is to calculate the footprint of the roof, or the area it occupies.

Login to SketchAndCalc and select Show Maps from the Menu.

Search the homes postal address from the map controls that appear in the top left corner.

When zoomed in, switch to satellite view.

Identify the roofs structure. Regardless of complexity , if the roof has a single pitch or incline throughout you can simply draw the perimeter of the entire roof using SketchAndCalcs line drawing tools.

TIP: Line length labels are displayed as you draw. If you find these labels obscure the view of the roof just switch them off from Menu > Settings > Application. You can also adjust the grid transparency and drawing line weight.

If the roof has multiple pitches, such as those found on dormer windows or porches you will need to draw these separately. After drawing the perimeter of the roof, add a new drawing layer with the plus symbol found in the bottom right corner. Then proceed to draw the surface area of the roof that has a different pitch. Using dormer windows as an example, youll add a new layer after drawing each dormer.

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Measuring The Roofs Pitch

The incline or pitch of a roof can be easily measured with a level, tape measure, and a pencil. The roofs pitch is the number of inches the roof rises in 12 inches. Therefore, mark off 12 inches on the level and place it down horizontally against the roof rafter.

Next, measure vertically from the 12-inch mark on the level straight up to the underside of the rafter, as illustrated below. That measurement is the number of inches the roof rises in 12 inches.

Some homes will have roofs with multiple pitches. Porches and dormer windows, for example, can have a different pitch from that of the rest of the house. For an accurate surface area measurement you should make note of these additional structures.

Using the table below, lookup the pitch/es and make a note of the number/s in the multiplier column. This multiplier number will be used to multiply the surface area calculation that SketchAndCalc will provide.

Google Maps Area Calculator Tool

Use the Google Maps Area Calculator Tool to draw an area on a map and find out the measurement of the enclosed area. You are also able to save your areas for use later on. Click on the map to start drawing

Due to significant price increases we can no longer offer all functionally. You may find some functions are no longer available or have limitations in use

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Roof Dimensions Google Maps

Always remember that Google Maps are frequently tilted or tipped at a slight angle. Keep in mind that using Google Earth isnt going to give you a 100 percent accurate reading but it will give you a basic idea of the size of the roof for your calculations for the roofing materials.

How do I calculate the size of my roof?

lengthroofs

landmaptellareaGoogle Maps

Can Google maps show property lines?

can view parcel boundariesview property linesGooglemap view

Benefits Of Roof Measuring Software

There are many benefits to investing in software to help you measure roofs. Lets take a look at four key reasons why it makes sense to purchase roof measuring software:

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Calculate The Surface Area Of The Roof

Youll notice as an area is drawn the area and perimeter results are displayed in the bottom right corner. With a single pitch roof youll have only one area result that relates to the entire footprint or perimeter of the roof. Both metric and imperial measurement systems are displayed in a popup menu over the results area.

Take your area result and multiply it by the pitch multiplier found in the table above to arrive at the roofs surface area. Now youre ready to price out the materials.

For multi-pitched roofs simply add the areas of all common pitches together by toggling layer visibility from the summed layer at the left of the layers control.

Use the appropriate pitch multiplier for each totaled area calculated, then sum all the areas together.

Final Thoughts On Measuring Your Roof

If youre looking for a simple ballpark estimate of your roofing materials needs, Google Earth really does a great job of quickly allowing you to measure the square footage youll need to cover. While its technology sure is surreal, it has drawbacks in its ability to precisely measure distances represented in 3D. Therefore, it can be helpful to gauge estimates of your materials costs by measuring from the ground and on top of your structure. As always, if youre feeling confused, dont hesitate to get in touch with a local roofing contractor to help you out. Many will provide estimates for free. Simply ask how many squares of material they estimate youll need, and compare that to the results you got from using any of the methods we outlined above.

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How To Safely Measure Your Roof From The Ground

Whenever possible, you should avoid the risk of walking along the eaves of a roof. The CDC reports that more than 150,000 Americans end up receiving medical treatment due to roofing accidents every year. These injuries can be serious, from fractures to brain trauma. Even professionals fall off of roofs, so its wise to reduce your risk of accidents as much as possible.

One of the ways you can reduce your risk of accidents is by learning how to safely measure a roof from the ground. Without ever climbing up on the roof, you can learn a great deal about the size and dimensions of your roof.

Lets start by looking at the materials youll need for measuring a roof.

• Tape Measure
• Graph Paper
• Calculator
• Pitch Gage

With these simple tools available, youre ready to get started.

Draw Each Shape Individually Calculate Each Area And The Total Square Footage Of Your Roof

Now we have eight shapes to find the area of six triangles and two rectangles. Instead of breaking out the old textbooks to calculate triangle areas, we like to use a triangle calculator. It makes figuring out the area of triangles a lot simpler.

In the example above, we have two triangles with sides of 30, 20, and 20 feet. Pop those figures in the three-sides calculator and youll get an area of 198. Since we have two of those triangles, multiply by 2 for a running total of 396 square feet.

We have four remaining triangles, all with dimensions of 15, 20, and 25 feet. That same calculator reveals a result of 150 square feet. Since there are four of those triangles, multiply by 4 to get 600 square feet.

Lastly, we have two rectangles of 15 by 30 feet. This one is easy, just width times height for a total of 450 square feet for each one. Multiply by 2 and their total square footage is 900.

Adding all the areas up yields a total of 1896 square feet . Since roofing material comes in 100 square foot squares, youll need at least 19 of them for your roofing project. Itd be wise to get at least 20 to account for mistakes and waste.

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Roof Pitch And Area Tools For Solar And Roofing

New MapBrowser provides roof-pitch, height, width and area tools to help companies measure rooftops and structures without onsite inspections gives small businesses the same advantages as large companies to improve planning and presentation workflows.

SOUTH JORDAN, Utah October 3, 2018 Nearmap, a premium global location content provider specializing in high-resolution aerial maps, today introduced a complete measurement toolset in MapBrowser for the solar, roofing and other rooftop industries. The new tools allow users to measure roof-pitch, height, width and area, enabling roofers and solar installers to confidently measure rooftops and structures from high-resolution oblique aerial images.

The new MapBrowser helps customers significantly reduce onsite visits during the quoting and planning stages of projects and complements their remote roof/site inspection workflows, giving many small businesses the power of expensive systems that only large companies use.

Using Nearmap tools, roofers and solar companies will be able to:

Calculate Roof Pitch From The Ground In Three Quick Steps

Roof pitch is one of those things that middle school math and geometry instructors can easily point to, and say, See? Learning how to work with rise over run is fun and useful, right? If at any moment you start having PTSD flashbacks to algebra or geometry class, take a deep breath. Well walk you through this slowly in three simple steps. All you need is a tape measure, and possibly a helper to hold it.

Step One: Grab that tape measure, notepad, and pencil and head outside. Find the slope of your roof youd like to measure, and start measuring the distance from the outer edge of the eave to the point at which the plane of the roof slope is barely visible to your eye. Write that number down in both inches. This figure is the horizontal run.

Step Two: Stand directly underneath the gutter or edge of the roof plane you want to calculate the slope for. Measure the distance from your eye to the top of the drip edge of your roof overhang. Write that number down in inches, too. This figure is the roof rise.

Step Three: Take the roof rise figure in Step Two and divide it by the horizontal run from Step One. In the example above, the rise is 60 inches and the run is 120 inches. This reduces down to a roof pitch of 6/12. Well use this figure in just a bit, so keep it handy.

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