No less than 3 meters! What does the adjustment of residential floor height standards mean?

Recently, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development is organizing the compilation of construction guidelines for "good houses" and is also revising the "Residential Project Specifications", one of which is to increase the residential floor height to no less than 3 meters.

This means that the national standard for floor height that has been implemented for many years is about to change. In particular, with the further improvement and enhancement of relevant regulations, the living comfort of housing will be further improved.

What does residential floor height refer to?

Floor height is like the height of a house. To understand these issues, let's look at a formula: floor height - floor thickness = net height. 2.8 meters. This is the old floor height standard, which refers to the distance from the floor of the current floor to the floor of the upper floor. When buying a house, it is usually the net height.

my country's 2005 edition of "Residential Building Code" and 2011 edition of "Residential Design Code" both have mandatory requirements for indoor net height not less than 2.40m. The requirements for floor height come from the 2011 edition of "Residential Design Code", which stipulates that "the height of residential floors should be 2.80m".

"Should" indicates that this is a recommended requirement, so the implementation in different places may vary slightly. As the national standard has been implemented for many years, some requirements no longer meet the current people's requirements for improving living quality.

What changes will increasing floor height bring?

Experts say that modern families have increasingly diverse demands for living space, and a floor height of more than 3 meters can support a variety of decoration styles and space layouts, such as designing mezzanines, lofts or open spaces to meet the personalized needs of different families. In addition, it can also provide many conveniences for the installation, use and maintenance of various types of equipment in the house, which not only improves the comfort and convenience of living, but also provides strong support for the intelligence and high-quality life of modern homes.

Wu Jing, deputy dean of the School of Civil Engineering and Water Conservancy and director of the Real Estate Research Center at Tsinghua University, believes that more and more building equipment is becoming standard in good houses, such as central air conditioning, ducted fresh air, and floor heating in northern regions. The increase in building height can provide more space for the installation of building equipment and decoration from a three-dimensional perspective.

He said that with a higher height, there is more space for windows, which is very beneficial for lighting and ventilation, all of which help to significantly improve living comfort. Chinese people are getting taller and taller, and in the process of housing improvement, we not only hope that the housing area can be larger, but also that it can be taller.

Liu Xiaozhong, chief architect of Beijing Institute of Architectural Design, said that after the height is increased, the comfort level will be different every 10 centimeters or 20 centimeters. In terms of volume, air, environment, vision, and space for activities will all be improved to a certain extent.

He believes that floor heating takes up some floor height, and we are currently targeting people's requirements for comfort, sound insulation, crack prevention, etc. These measures all require increasing the height of the space. Conversely, we can offset this part of the space occupied by increasing the floor height itself.

"The biggest change of increasing the floor height of a house by 20 centimeters is that the living comfort will be greatly improved. Low floor heights can make people feel depressed. With higher floor heights, the windows can be larger, and the indoor environment, ventilation, and spatial perception will all be improved. This should be the main purpose of raising the floor height standard for houses." Dong Wenjun, general manager of Nanjing Changjiang Urban Architectural Design Co., Ltd., said that the previous standard was too low, and if the floor was heated, the floor height would be further compressed. According to the height scale of an average adult, the space above the head is indeed not wide enough.

Yan Yuejin, deputy director of the Shanghai E-House Real Estate Research Institute, believes that higher floor heights mean better ventilation and lighting conditions, which help improve indoor air quality and enhance occupants' comfort. It is also more in line with modern people's living habits and psychological needs, and is a reflection of the comfort standards of a "good house."

The increase in residential floor height will also bring about changes in other standards, such as planning conditions, fire protection standards, and the number of building floors. The current height limit for improved residential buildings is 60 meters. The original height of 2.8 meters could be 20 floors, but now it can only be 19 floors. One less floor means a lot less area, which means the volume ratio will be reduced. In terms of fire protection, the number of stairs and elevators, evacuation requirements, etc. will also be adjusted accordingly.

Many places have already adjusted the local standards for floor height

In recent years, many places such as Jiangsu, Shandong, Yunnan, etc. have adjusted the local residential floor height standards, raising the floor height. The new standards require between 3 meters and 3.3 meters.

In Tianjin, the new version of "Tianjin Residential Design Standards" issued locally adjusted the original standard "residential floor height should be 2.8 meters" to "residential floor height should not be less than 3.0 meters."

In Kunming, in response to the diversified demand for improved housing, it is clearly stated that the floor height of residential buildings shall not be less than 3 meters, and it is required that, regardless of whether the balcony is enclosed or not, the balcony's gross floor area shall be calculated as 1/2 of the horizontal projection area of ​​the space.

Jiangsu's "Guidelines for the Design and Construction of Improved Housing" proposes that the floor height of improved housing should not be less than 3.1 meters, and the floor height of improved housing with more than three floors should not be greater than 3.6 meters; for improved housing equipped with floor heating, ducted fresh air or centralized central air-conditioning systems, the floor height should not be less than 3.15 meters.

Shandong's high-quality residential design guidelines (trial) also clearly state that residential floor height should not be less than 3.0 meters, and encourage projects with conditions to increase the space height to more than 3.3 meters. Anhui's high-quality residential design guidelines further specify that residential floor height should not be less than 3 meters, and prefabricated houses and houses with centralized air conditioning and floor heating systems should not be less than 3.1 meters.

In 2024, Hubei Province issued the "Technical Standards for High-Quality Housing", which stipulates that the main structure of the building should be designed for durability of 100 years, the residential floor height should not be less than 3 meters, and also stipulates relevant requirements such as volume ratio and residential height.

The Beijing local standard "Residential Design Code" will be implemented in 2021, requiring residential floor height to be no less than 2.8 meters and indoor net height to be no less than 2.5 meters. After the national standard is adjusted, Beijing's relevant standards may continue to follow up.

Wu Jing said that according to our incomplete statistics, in the past three or four years, some cities have successively proposed to increase the requirements for the height of residential buildings in their guidelines or instructions for residential construction. The standards after the increase are concentrated between 3 meters and 3.3 meters.

Experts also said that the reason why the requirements vary from place to place is mainly due to differences in specific environments and needs. Because the appropriate floor height is more comfortable, and the floor height is related to the economic conditions when the house is built, as well as the long-term habits of designing, building and using houses.

Source: CCTV News, Beijing News, Xinhua Daily, Jimu News