If you’re the one who does the maintenance job of the house from inside and outside, a ladder is very essential equipment for you. With the right ladder, you can easily maintain, clean, and perform any kind of decoration-related task easily.
Now, if you can’t decide on which size of the ladder is perfect and safe for your two-story house, you can’t complete your task properly. In fact, it’s a little bit tricky for anyone to find the right size ladder for a multiple-story building as different people need ladders for different types of tasks.
But you don’t need to worry about that anymore. Below in this article, we’re going to show you how to pick the right size ladder for a two-story house. We’ll do our best to help you figure out the right size ladder according to your needs.
How Tall Is a 2 Story House– Is There Any Standard?
To pick the right size of ladder for your house, you need to determine the height of your house first. It’ll help you to choose the right size ladder for your house. According to each country’s rules and regulations, buildings must obey the guidelines for both story and height limits.
Moreover, the design, structure, style also determines the height of the stories of a building. However, the main variances depend on various factors such as laws of the land, construction materials, cultural norms, types of the roof, etc. So before you go to choose the right size of ladder for a two-story building, it’s crucial to learn the height of the two-story house.
Let’s find out how long/height a two-story house is.
Basically, a story refers to the level of a building that has a floor and the height of every particular story is the distance among the two floors levels. You need to measure the distance between the ground-level floor to the upper-level floor. When calculating the floor level, you need to include the thickness of the ceiling as well.
For example, consider the standard height of a one-story 8-10 feet for each floor. Now for a 10 ft. house, the actual height is 8 ft. along with a ceiling of 2 ft. After doing the calculation, you’ll get the height of two stories between 16-20 ft. Although it’s the standard height of a two-stories house, in some cases the height of two stories may end up with 25 feet high.
What Size Ladder For 2 Story Houses?
It’s quite difficult to give a straightforward answer to this question. In fact, finding the perfect ladder for painting a two-story house or doing any other task is a very challenging job. You’ll need the height of your two-story house, first, to determine the right size of ladder for it. But don’t worry, you won’t need a ladder height calculator for that.
You can simply do the guesswork with a measuring tape. Just drop the measuring tape from the window of your two-story building and include 1.6 feet to 3.2 feet to balance the ladder pitch & the depth of the ceiling. However, our suggestion is to measure the height of your two-story house correctly to complete your job properly. And, it’ll help you to avoid any kind of potential injury due to the incorrect size of the height.
How to Estimate the Length of a Ladder for a Regular 2-Floor House
With Pythagoras Theorem, it’s very simple. By the way, don’t worry. We are not going to ask you to learn the theory. Let us tell you how you can complete the process.
Think that,
A= refers to the height of your house wall
B= refers to the distance between the ladder feet and base
C= refers to the pitch that you need to make for the ladder
NB: Strictly follow proper angle rules for the ladder when you are setting it. Remember, if the pitch is too long there is a higher possibility of slipping your ladder and causing an accident. On the contrary, if it’s too short, it’ll tip over and you can’t complete your job properly.
The Right Pitch of a Ladder for 2 Story House
By measuring the right length pitch for your ladder, you can increase its effectiveness for different types of work. For example, consider that the height of your two-story house is about 20 feet. Now, you must set the base of your ladder at 5-feet away from the base of your two-story house wall based on a 4:1 ratio. In addition, you also have to follow the angle rule for the ladder which is 75° away from your two-story house wall. This method is also known as the 4:1 rule or one in four rule.
How Tall of a Ladder for a Two Story House
Let us tell you the exact formula and process of estimation to determine the proper size for the two-story ladder.
Let,
The height of your two-story house wall (a) = Six meters or 20 feet.
The distance between the base and ladder feet (b)-(4:1 ratio) = 1.5 meters or 5 feet.
Now, what is the pitch that the ladder will make (c) =?
Let’s deploy the Pythagoras Theorem (a2+b2=c2) to determine the length of the ladder for a two-story house. Now to determine the height of the two-story house ladder you need to square the (a) and (b) to get the value of c.
- a2+b2=c2
- Or, C2=a2+b2
- Or, C2= (6)2 +(1.5)2
- Or, C2= 36+2.25
- Or, C2= 38.25
- Or, C= 6.18 (square root of 2)
So, the pitch ladder you’ll need is 6.18 meters.
ADD More Height To The Ladder And WHY So?
One thing you need to make sure is the peak-end of the straight & extension ladder must extend above the roofline approximately 1 meter or three feet. It means you’ll need a ladder over 7 meters or 24 feet in height when you go for a straight ladder.
On the other hand, if you go for an extension ladder, you need to keep one thing in mind that the overall height of the ladder reaches 3 feet less than its described height because of overlapping between two sections.
For example, when you go for a 16 feet extension ladder you’ll get only 13-feet long when the ladder is fully extended. Therefore with a 16 feet extension ladder, you can only reach over 13 feet height.
So, if the height of your two-story house is 20 feet, you will need a 24 feet straight ladder and 27 feet long extension ladder.
Final Verdict
In the above article, we briefly explained what size ladder for a 2 story house you may need and what are the processes of determining the right size. Most of us don’t pay attention at the beginning to the later troubles while choosing a ladder.
Hence, when you purchase a ladder keep these things in your mind. And, don’t forget to make sure about your safety. You’ll find a variety of options when you are going to select a ladder, always go for the one that seems safer for you.
