Will furniture fit through a door?
Type the item and the opening. The calculator tries all six ways of turning the item, names the one to try, and checks the hallway corner past the door. Then drag it around the plan to see the same shapes for yourself.
Waiting
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Enter the item and the door opening to see whether it goes through.
- Way to carry it—
- Narrowest opening it needs—
- Longest this corner takes—
| Check | Spare | Result |
|---|
Drag the item and turn it. Walls are solid: overlap one and the plan says so. Objects can be focused with the Tab key: arrow keys move the focused object, and the [ and ] keys turn it.
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This is a plan view, looking down. It shows the width of the opening and the shape of the corner. It cannot show the height of the opening, and finding a spot on screen does not prove there is a path through in real life.
The longest way across it. On a sofa, arm to arm.
Front to back. Measure the deepest part, cushions included.
Floor to the top. Feet and castors count.
The gap you can walk through, not the size of the door. With the door open, measure from the frame to the face of the door.
Floor to the underside of the frame. Most US interior doors sit a little under 80 in.
Wall to wall. Used only for the corner check, and taken as the width of both sides of the turn.
How far out your tape might be. Anything closer than this is reported as uncertain instead of yes or no.
What this assumes
- The item is treated as a solid box. Real furniture is not. Cushions come off, legs unbolt, a sofa back is low over the seat, and a mattress bends. Every one of those makes the real answer better than this one.
- Nothing is tilted. The six ways round are the six square ones. Tilting an item in a doorway makes it need the diagonal of the face you are pushing through, which is always larger.
- The corner assumes solid walls on both sides. The formula treats each hallway as carrying on past the elbow. If there is an open doorway or a room at the corner, you have more swing than the number says.
- Both sides of the turn are the width you typed. Where the turn sits changes what you can do about it, not the geometry, so before and after give the same number.
- Stairs, landings and lifts are not checked. Neither is the ceiling height over a stairwell, which is what catches people standing something on end.
How this calculation works
- Six ways to turn it
- Test each against the opening
- Test the plan shape against the corner
- Report the tightest
corner limit = min over t of (a − W·sin t) ÷ cos t + (b − W·cos t) ÷ sin t
A box can meet a rectangular hole six ways. Any of its three measurements can point through the hole, and the other two can be swapped by rolling the box over. Each way is tested against the width and the height of the opening. The one with the most room to spare is the one the page tells you to try.
The corner is a different sum. Carrying a long item round a right angle
needs much more room than carrying it down a straight hallway, and the
limit is the shortest the item can get while it is diagonal across the
elbow. That is the formula above, with a and b
for the two hallway widths, W for the width of the item in
plan, and t for the turn angle. Every angle from 0 to 90
degrees is tried and the worst one wins, because the item has to pass
through all of them.
The three answers mean different things. Likely fits means every check clears by more than your measuring slack. Uncertain means the tightest check is inside that slack, so it depends on how the item is handled and how good your tape work was. Likely not means something is short by more than the slack, and the page names which.
What these items need
| Item | Example size | Opening | Carried |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two-seat sofa | 60 × 33 × 30 in | 30 in | On its back, end first |
| Three-seat sofa | 84 × 38 × 34 in | 34 in | On its back, end first |
| Armchair | 35 × 38 × 36 in | 35 in | Upright, side first |
| Queen mattress | 80 × 60 × 11 in | 11 in | On its back, end first |
| Fridge-freezer | 36 × 33 × 70 in | 33 in | Upright, end first |
| Washing machine | 27 × 27 × 38 in | 27 in | Upright, end first |
| Six-drawer dresser | 60 × 19 × 33 in | 19 in | Upright, end first |
What a hallway corner takes
| Both hallways | Item 24 in wide | Item 36 in wide |
|---|---|---|
| 30 in | 37 in | 12 in |
| 36 in | 54 in | 30 in |
| 42 in | 71 in | 47 in |
| 48 in | 88 in | 64 in |
Door widths, and what the codes say
US interior doors are sold at 24, 28, 30, 32 and 36 inches wide, almost always 80 inches tall. The slab is 1 and 3/8 inches thick. With the door open, that thickness plus the stop on the frame eats into the gap, so the opening you can measure runs roughly 1 3/4 to 2 inches under the size on the label. That is a rule of thumb from the trade, not a standard. Take your own measurement.
| Door sold as | Expect to measure |
|---|---|
| 24 in | about 22 in |
| 28 in | about 26 in |
| 30 in | about 28 in |
| 32 in | about 30 in |
| 36 in | about 34 in |
Two code figures are worth knowing, and neither one governs an ordinary interior door in a house. The 2010 ADA Standards, section 404.2.3, set a minimum clear width of 32 inches, measured between the face of the door and the stop with the door open 90 degrees (US Access Board). The residential code, IRC R311.2, asks the one required exit door of a home to give at least 32 inches clear and 78 inches of clear height (2021 IRC). Bedroom and bathroom doors have no such minimum, which is why old houses have 24 inch doors that nothing goes through.
The corner beats the door
Most people measure the door and stop there. The door is rarely the problem. A hallway 36 inches wide with a right angle in it will take a rigid item 30 inches deep only up to about 42 inches long. A three-seat sofa is twice that.
What saves real moves is that hallway corners are almost never closed on all four sides. There is a bedroom door at the elbow, or the hall opens into a living room, and that gap is where the far end of the sofa goes while you swing it. Before you decide a move is impossible, go and look at what opens off the corner.
Take the door off
An interior door slab is 1 and 3/8 inches thick. With the door open it still sits inside the frame, stealing that much of the gap. Lifting it off the hinges gives most of it back, and it takes a screwdriver and two minutes.
Prying the stop off the frame buys about another half inch. Do that one carefully, because the stop is usually pinned and painted, and you have to put it back.
Measure the diagonal before you tilt
Tilting an item in the doorway feels like it should help. It does not. Lay a tape across the face you are pushing through, corner to corner: that diagonal is what the opening has to swallow once the item is at an angle, and it is always bigger than either side.
Tilting helps with a different thing. It gets a tall item under a low frame, or a long item up a stairwell, by trading height for length. If that is your problem, the diagonal is the number to measure. If your problem is width, turning the item square and taking it through end first is what works.
What this page cannot tell you
It treats your item as a solid rectangular box. Sofas are not. The back is low over the seat. Cushions lift out. Feet unbolt, and a good upholsterer can take a leg off in a minute. Those are the tricks that get a sofa through an opening the maths says is too small.
It does not plan a path in three dimensions. There is no check for stairs, for the headroom over a half landing, for a lift car, or for the radiator that sits opposite the door. A stair or lift check could be added here later. It is not here yet, so walk the route with a tape before you buy.
Common questions
How wide is the opening of a standard interior door?
US interior doors are usually sold as 24, 28, 30, 32 or 36 inches wide, and 80 inches tall. The gap you can carry something through is smaller than the door, because the open door and its stop both sit in the way. On a 30 inch door expect to measure about 28 inches. Measure yours rather than trusting the label.
Does taking a door off its hinges help?
Yes, by roughly the thickness of the door. A US interior door slab is 1 and 3/8 inches thick, so lifting it off gives back most of that. Prying the stop off the frame can add about half an inch more. It is the cheapest inch and a half you will ever find on a moving day.
Why will my sofa not go round the hallway corner?
A right-angle turn needs far more room than a straight run. Between two hallways 36 inches wide, a rigid item 30 inches deep can only be about 42 inches long before it jams. That is the geometry of the corner, not the door. Real corners are often easier because a doorway or an open room sits at the elbow and gives you somewhere to swing.
For the step-by-step version of this, with the measurements to take before you buy, read getting a sofa through a door. Once the item is inside, see whether the room takes it: try the dining table room size calculator or the bed size room fit calculator.
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