If you’ve lived all your life in newer buildings, you’re probably familiar with the sense of expansiveness and ease you feel on entering a Victorian or Edwardian house, then noting how high the ceilings are compared to those in your own home. What happened?
Regulation of ceiling heights in Australia goes all the way back to 1810, when, under the Governorship of Lachlan Macquarie, an order was issued to the effect that “no Dwelling-house is to be less than nine Feet high” (this figure probably refers to the ‘pitching height’ of the rafters, which is de facto roughly the ceiling height). Presumably the order was felt necessary because builders and developers were trying to skimp on material costs by building low, and nine feet (2.7m) was settled on as the minimum required to provide amenity to occupants. In the Australian climate, tall rooms have the advantage of being cooler in summer, because warm air will pool near the ceiling, leaving cooler air near the inhabited zone at floor level- the difference can be 5° C or more. In the short mild winters, high ceilings presented less of a disadvantage than they do today, because heating then was radiant- open fireplaces heat surfaces and bodies directly, rather than heating the air of the entire space, as is the case with modern air conditioning systems. Taller rooms also allow for taller windows, allowing light to penetrate more deeply into rooms.
As the prosperity of the colonies grew, so did ceiling heights. In particular, a fall in material costs in the 1860s saw ceiling heights of twelve or even fourteen feet (3.6 or 4.2m) becoming relatively common in the homes of the affluent.
The 20th century saw ceiling heights swing back in the other direction. Following World War 2 in particular, austerity conditions and materials shortages put pressure on building regulations to reflect new economic realities, and the minimum ceiling height for habitable rooms was reduced from 9 to 8 feet (2.7 to 2.4m), where it remains today. This represents a reduction of just over 10% in required wall materials. Taller ceilings may also require taller cornices, skirting boards, doors and windows if they are to remain in proportion. Ceiling lights need to be more powerful or more numerous the further they are from the floor. In two storey houses, increasing the floor-to-floor height means more space and material required for the stairs. So dropping the ceiling can mean substantial savings, and for the ‘marginal’ prospective buyer whose ability to afford a house is borderline, the difference might mean being able to scrape together the deposit for a mortgage on an off-the-plan volume-built house.
While ceilings have dropped over time, the size of the average Australian house has more than doubled since 1950. One way of interpreting this is that we've sacrificed vertical space for horizontal, and not because families have grown (they’ve shrunk), but to accommodate all our extra stuff. Vertical space is seen as not as useful for this purpose; its value is more intangible, more difficult to articulate, and harder to defend against the material advantages of ‘building out.’
