Reading the Floor Plans-What to Look For?

The Floor Plan is an important document to analyze before you buy a house or flat/apartment : 

When you are on house hunt, you tend to visit new and upcoming properties every other day, may be with your family. During these visits, builder’s sales team pitch you their project, in which they show you floor plan of the building, which is crucial document. The floor plan can give you the instant view of your probable future home. So, it is very important to analyze and understand the floor plans properly.

Generally, we interchange terms- “floor plans” and “layout plans” in common conversation, but it is should not be the case as both are different terms. A layout plan will give you the placements of the buildings, open space, gardens, parking etc. on the whole property. It is the plan at a larger scale, on the whole property (whole society, plot or city). A floor plan is a diagram, mostly to the scale, showing a view from above of the relationships between rooms, spaces and other features at one level of the structure.

A floor plan shows the following at a glance in general:

• The place of rooms and kitchen with respect to each other
• The place of doors and windows
• The direction the house is facing
• Dimensions of each room
• Storage spaces provided by the builder
• Position of different flats on the single floor, lift and staircase provisions
  
  
  

 How to Read the Floor Plans?

While analyzing the floor plans the followings points should be considered and questions should be answered by asking builder or looking at the floor plans. If floor planning is not proper it might create problems like inconvenience, poor natural lighting, and loss of space or unnecessary movement of people, which will cost privacy. Check for dimension of each room as mentioned in floor plan, which will give you idea of size of the room. Check whether the room size (dimensions) match your expected area of room or not. You can compare the floor plans with sample house if available to get the exact idea.

Here is the checklist that you should keep in mind while analyzing the floor plans:

• Check the planning of the each room and movement flow of person from common areas to entrance of house/flat
• Check total number of rooms as per your family size or your future needs
• Are the dimensions of the room suited to your needs? You may need larger room size,often
• The kitchen is very important part of your house, does it have enough space as per your needs?
• Does the kitchen have slots created for appliances like refrigerator or mixture?
• Generally, each bedroom have separate entrance door and should not be connected to each other, as it may hinder the privacy. Do you have to walk from one bedroom to get to other?
• Check the storage space like cupboards or any other as per your needs
• Is the children’s room near the parents? Would you prefer connected rooms?
• How many common bathroom and attached bathrooms are provided? Is guest bathroom provided in common?
• Is there proper cross ventilation in the flat/house? This is very important point for proper planned and ventilated home.
• Which is the facing of the house? If you believe in Vastu Sashtra, then is it as per the Vastu Shashtra?
• Do you get enough natural lighting? Check the sun shades, which might appear during the day time. Will it get morning sunlight or afternoon sunlight?

By analyzing and considering these points, you will get the overall idea of the property. However,you can get the best feel of the property once it is constructed or in the sample house.