General
Share and discuss tech, products, business, startups, or product recommendations
Start new thread
Terrence Kelleman

How to estimate house dimensions from an address (building a fire protection app)

by
I'm working on a revolutionary fire protection product that can have a massive impact and empower home owners to protect their houses from wildfires. I need to figure out what is the best way to estimate the total dimensions of a house if only given an address. I need to understand roof angles, forms, heights and overall dimensions in order to make specific recommendations for each home owner- Google Maps, Zillow are some ideas I had. Any advice? Much appreciated T
18 views

Add a comment

Replies

Best
Rajiv Ayyangar
Interesting...what have you tried so far? This is a bit heavy handed, but you might try @ChatGPT by OpenAI - their new Operator app is expensive but could browse the web and get the job done. Maybe @steveb has ideas?
steve beyatte
@rajiv_ayyangar @terrence_kelleman this is fun. Most (all?) US cities have PIM info that could be scraped easily. Here's San Francisco's: https://sfplanninggis.org/pim/. You could also look at @Esri 's APIs here: https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgi... which have tons of options. Specific info like roof angles might be tough but general form and size I bet could either scrape or find in ESRI.
Terrence Kelleman
@steveb wow that's amazing, I love this community! thanks so much @steveb
Terrence Kelleman
@rajiv_ayyangar I was going to use Google maps and plotting but that was way short of what I needed.
André J
Solar panel companies has roof angle calculators often. Maybe take inspo from these websites? Here is one: https://www.otovo.no/
Terrence Kelleman
@sentry_co wow so interesting! thanks so much
Rajiv Ayyangar
@sentry_co that's a cool related application. Hmmmm it seems like it's not directly applicable because otovo (https://otovo.co.uk/) et al. (here's one: https://shopsolarkits.com/pages/... )are calculating ideal solar panel tilt based on the sun aspect, whereas Terrence is looking for the physical roof angle.
André J
@rajiv_ayyangar Yeah. angle is going to be a challenge with only info from google maps. Usually these solar as a service websites figure out the area of the roof. But in order for them to give accurate info regarding which panels to use. They must some how also factor in angle. So an idea could be to contact them and ask how they do it.
Terrence Kelleman
@sentry_co good point! 😉
Fatimah

You're on the right track with tools like Google Maps, Google Earth Pro, and Zillow—they’re useful for estimating roof size, angles, and general home dimensions. We’ve come across similar methods while working with rooftops on this solar-focused site especially when remote assessments are needed. You could also explore property data APIs for more precise info. Sounds like a great project—best of luck moving forward.

Freddy Alexander
Amazing! That sounds like an amazing product! You can use Google Earth for 3D views and roof angles, Zillow for basic dimensions, and county property records for detailed measurements. Check more here https://lucky101.online/