Many argue that the height of a 5-storey building is 15 meters. This is determined by calculating the number of floors per floor height, which we consider equal to 3 meters. In fact, this is not entirely true and the height of the house can vary from 14 to 20 m or more. Why it is different and what it consists of, let’s find out.
SNiP gives a classification of buildings based on the number of floors. According to them, five-story buildings belong to multi-apartment buildings (MKD) of medium height. Next come high-rise buildings, these are 6-9-story buildings with a height of up to 30 meters, multi-story buildings – 10-16 and skyscrapers over 17.
You can correctly calculate the height of any house, knowing several parameters. This is the height:
- floor;
- roofs;
- plinth.
The main parameter, of course, is the height of the floor. Using it, you can determine the height of at least 2-storey buildings or 14. Therefore, let’s deal with this value.
Floor height in the apartment
In simple terms, the floor height is the distance from the floor level to the floor on the floor above. As mentioned above, it is customary to take a value of 3 meters when calculating the height of a building. In reality, such a value was only in the Stalinist five-story buildings. The ceilings in “Khrushchev” were usually 2,45 – 2,64 m.
Previously, the standard was calculated from the volume of air in the room, so during the years of Stalin’s reign, the ceilings were the highest and amounted to 3,2 meters. For this, the apartments of that time are valued even today. And it was during his reign that they began to switch to the construction of 5-storey buildings instead of 4-storey ones.
During the time of Khrushchev, a series of typical 5-storey buildings went on, but savings were already in the first place. The inconvenience was valued, and the number of square meters put into operation. By saving on floor space, much more housing can be built. Standardized housing made it possible to quickly build entire neighborhoods.
With the coming to power of Brezhnev, the construction of standard panel houses continued, but already more comfortable. Although the distance to the ceilings in panel houses remained at the level of 250 cm. However, more and more projects appeared with a value of 270 cm. In brick 5-story buildings, the ceilings were much higher and amounted to 2,8 cm.
Now there is no standard for the distance to the ceiling, but there are SNiP norms, according to which a room is considered residential with a ceiling height of 2,5 meters or more. Based on these values, the average ceiling height in the apartment is 2,8 m.
To this value we add the thickness of the interfloor overlap of 16–22 cm. In total, we get an average floor size of about 3 meters.
Ground floor and roof
Almost all high-rise buildings begin from the basement floor. This is a semi-basement in which the communications of the house are connected: water, gas, sewerage. Part of the basement rises above ground level and is part of the total height of the 5-storey building. As you can see from the photo below, the elevation is not lower than 1,5 meters, and this is significant. But more often, he still looks out about 100 cm.
This floor is a component of the foundation and the whole house rests on it. A 5-storey building with one entrance weighs, according to approximate estimates, 8-9 thousand tons. But usually houses with 2-4 entrances were built. In total, together with residential floors it will turn out: 5 * 3 + 1,5 = 16,5 m.
The roof also contributes to the height and, depending on the project, can be multi-pitched or flat. In the case of a gable roof, the increase could be up to 5 meters. In this case, the total size will be already 21,5 meters.
If the roof does not have slopes, then only the size of the parapets will be added to these values. This is a building envelope with a height of up to 100 cm. In total, we get 17,5 m. Which is also more than the initial calculation of 15 m.
However, if we take typical panel houses of 5 floors with a ceiling of 2,5 meters (floor 2,7 m), a basement of 1 meter and a parapet of 0,5, we get: 1 + 2,7 * 5 + 0,5 = 15. But more often it was not so, and much depended on the standard project according to which the house was built.
Typical buildings of the USSR
Typical panel and brick 5-story houses began to be actively built during the Khrushchev era, starting in 1957. The country needed cheap housing and as quickly as possible. Therefore, such projects were developed, some were intended for the southern regions, others for the northern ones. Brick ones had a slightly better layout and room sizes.
The same serial project being built in different regions could differ somewhat. Different climatic conditions, the soils on which the construction was carried out, made their own amendments to the size of the five-story buildings. It is clear that each project differed in the height of the building.
The length of a 5-storey building with 4 entrances for a typical 5-storey building of the project 1-528-3k is 72,4 meters. It depended on the layout of the apartments and a little on the thickness of the panels. The wall thickness of the panels ranges from 300 mm to 400 mm.
Brezhnevkas were built until the end of 1980, and successful projects are taken as a basis even now. They were not particularly different from the Khrushchevs, but the entrance area was larger, the flights of stairs were wider and a garbage chute was installed.
Сonclusion
Now, knowing what the height of a five-story building consists of, you can approximately calculate the size of any building. In our calculations, we got values from 15 meters to 21,5. And if you need accurate data, you will have to look for a project with full dimensions.