Minimum room size and ceiling height checker
Enter one room from your plan and see whether it meets the minimums in the National Building Code of the Philippines, PD 1096. Each result names the section its figure comes from.
What is usually called the standard ceiling height is the code's minimum: 2.70 m for a room people live in with windows only, and 2.40 m with artificial ventilation in a single-storey house (Section 805). The table below gives the storey-by-storey figures.
Result
Enter the room's length and width to see how it compares with the code. The result updates as you type.
The minimums in the code
These are the figures the checker uses, read from the text of the decree. They apply to every house, whatever its size.
Room sizes, Section 806
| Room | Minimum floor area | Narrowest side |
|---|---|---|
| Room for human habitation | 6.00 m² | 2.00 m |
| Kitchen | 3.00 m² | 1.50 m |
| Bath and toilet | 1.20 m² | 0.90 m |
A room people sleep or live in has to reach both figures. A room 3.00 m by 1.90 m has 5.70 m² and a narrow side under 2.00 m, so it fails twice even though it looks close.
Ceiling heights, Section 805
| Where the room is | Minimum ceiling height |
|---|---|
| Habitable room with natural ventilation | 2.70 m |
| Habitable room with artificial ventilation | 2.40 m |
| Artificial ventilation, first storey of a building of more than one storey | 2.70 m |
| Artificial ventilation, second storey | 2.40 m |
| Artificial ventilation, third storey and above, headroom clearance | 2.10 m |
| Mezzanine, clear height above and below it | 1.80 m |
“Habitable rooms provided with artificial ventilation have ceiling heights not less than 2.40 meters measured from the floor to the ceiling; Provided that for buildings of more than one-storey, the minimum ceiling height of the first storey shall be 2.70 meters and that for the second storey 2.40 meters and succeeding storeys shall have an unobstructed typical head-room clearance of not less than 2.10 meters above the finished floor. Above stated rooms with a natural ventilation shall have ceiling height not less than 2.70 meters.”
The storey figures sit inside the sentence about artificial ventilation. A naturally ventilated room needs 2.70 m on every storey, including the second.
Windows, air space and courts
- Window openings, Section 808. A room without artificial ventilation needs windows whose open area adds up to at least one tenth of its floor area, opening onto a court, yard, street, alley or open watercourse. The window symbol guide shows how to find each window and its size on a plan.
- What counts as artificial ventilation, Section 811. The exemption in Section 808 is for a system "as herein specified in this Code". Section 811 specifies it as changes of air per hour, and sends rooms it does not list to the Mechanical Engineering Code. An air conditioner that only recirculates the room's air may not meet that, so treat a windowless bedroom as a question for the building official.
- Air space, Section 807. A habitable room needs 14.00 m³ of space for each person using it.
- Courts, Section 804. A court is at least 2.00 m across at its narrowest, and an inner court connects to a street or yard through a passageway at least 1.20 m wide or through a room.
Source: Presidential Decree No. 1096, the National Building Code of the Philippines, Sections 804 to 808 and 811, as published by the Official Gazette.
What the checker does not cover
- How much of the lot you may build on. The lot coverage calculator works that out from Section 708, and the small house design guide explains why the lot comes first.
- Fire, accessibility, structure and services. Each has its own rules and its own signatures on the drawings. The building permit guide lists who signs what.
- A plan that fails here. Reworking a layout until every room meets the code is part of custom house design and interior space planning.
- The building office's own reading. A room that meets every figure here can still come back with comments if the house as a whole breaks another rule. Your municipality has the final word.
Want the whole plan looked at?
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