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Part of my job description requires that I find the volume of a room for calculating air leakage. Normally no problem, but this is an unusual house for many reasons. The main issue I'm having a problem with is that I don't know how to calculate the volume for a room where the ceiling slopes in two directions.

I knew that I'd have a problem with describing the room so I included a small example to illustrate the room i'm trying to find the volume of.

lopsided ceiling example lopsided ceiling

Would you also show the work, and/or at least provide a formula so that I can apply it on the job?? Thank you

1 Answers1

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I get a total volume of around 16,654 cubit feet.

See my schematic:

schematic

Hopefully it's legible enough.

Basically, we put the floor onto a coordinate plane of our choosing. Since the upper right corner is the only right angle at an extreme of the room, I chose that as the origin.

We then find the coordinates of all the corners of the room, and express the height of the ceiling as a plane; the volume of the room is then the double integral over your floor plan of that plane.

The double integral is simplest when splitting into trapezoidal regions; I couldn't see how to use less than 4 (labeled $A,B,C,D$ on the graph).

We need to use the Pythagorean theorem to find the coordinates of two points: the bottom of region $B$ and the bottom of region $C$. The equations used are to the right of the schematic.

We solve for the plane describing the height of your ceiling by using the general formula for a plane, $f(x,y)=ax+by+c$ and plugging the three points whose heights we know to find $(a,b,c)$. If we use three points you told us: $(0,0,0), (-25,-35.5,11), (-11,-38.15,10)$, we get $(a,b,c)\approx(-.072,-.005,9)$, but this is inconsistent with your saying that we also have $(-25,0,9)$ (because $f(-25,0)\approx 11$). I'll assume the 9 is wrong, for now; the procedure from here is the same once we've figured out the plane for the height of the ceiling:

Finally, we integrate:

$$V=\intop\intop_A f(x,y)dydx+\intop\intop_{B}f(x,y)dydx+\intop\intop_{C}f(x,y)dydx+\intop\intop_D f(x,y)dydx$$

$$V=\intop_{-25}^0\intop_{-17}^0f(x,y)dydx+\intop_{-31}^{-25}\intop_{-.187x-34.29}^{-16.5}f(x,y)dydx+\intop_{-25}^{-11}\intop_{-40.23-.189x}^{-17}f(x,y)dydx+\intop_{-11}^{-7}\intop_{20.01+5.29x}^{-17}f(x,y)dydx$$

I plugged those integrals into Wolfram Alpha (e.g.) to get the final approximations and added them.


EDIT:

In fact, with some care taken we can get WolframAlpha to give us the answer in general in terms of the $(a,b,c)$ which describe your roof by using $\max$ and $\min$ to describe the lower boundary (otherwise the query is too long for the website):

$$V(a,b,c)=-12781.8a-13824.9b+820.356c$$

So once you settle on which heights to use to describe your roof, solve for $(a,b,c)$ and plug it in to that simple equation.

  • But the ceiling can't be planar, given the dimensions in the diagram. It must be curved, and we don't know how it's curved. So we can't possibly calculate the volume of the room. – TonyK Jun 22 '15 at 21:50
  • OP says "roof is flat" in the comments – MichaelChirico Jun 22 '15 at 21:50
  • Yes. But that is impossible, given the heights in the diagram. – TonyK Jun 22 '15 at 21:51
  • He's saying 11' and 10' "assumed". I'll leave it to OP to say which of the measurements we should trust more. – MichaelChirico Jun 22 '15 at 21:53
  • But how did you get your answer, if the input data were inconsistent? – TonyK Jun 22 '15 at 21:54
  • ignored the fourth height (9 ft at (-25,0)) and found the plane through the others. Actually looks like that's pretty far off; we'll have to wait for an update from @JacobHooper. – MichaelChirico Jun 22 '15 at 21:55
  • Indeed.${}{}{}$ – TonyK Jun 22 '15 at 21:55
  • See edit. Regardless of if the ceiling is flat, the procedure is essentially unchanged. Just need to change $f$; even if it's curved, he clearly doesn't need to be correct to 4 decimal places; an approximation by a plane should suffice. It's just a matter of prudently choosing which plane to use. – MichaelChirico Jun 22 '15 at 22:14