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What is a door's clear opening width — and how do I measure it?

The clear opening is the smallest width and height an object can pass through with the door fully open — measured between the inner faces of the frame and from the finished floor to the underside of the frame, not off the door leaf.

The door leaf is not the hole

When a door is referred to by a single figure — "an 80 door" — that is the leaf's nominal size; the leaf itself typically measures a little more, around 82.5 cm wide. That figure does not tell you how much can actually get through.

The path from the leaf's size to the clear opening runs through three deductions:

• The frame's rebate and stop bead typically take 1–2 cm off the width the leaf would otherwise cover, because the leaf closes against a bead.
• The leaf itself, when it cannot open past 90°. A 4 cm leaf then stands out into the opening, and those 4 cm are gone.
• Weatherstrips and a door-bottom seal take a couple more centimetres off the height on an exterior door or a sound-rated door.

The maths in practice: an 82.5 cm door leaf in a frame where the leaf can only open to 90° often gives a clear passage of around 74–78 cm. That sounds like a detail, until a 76 cm fridge needs to go in.

How to measure the clear opening

1. Open the door as far as it goes. If it stops against a wall, a floor stop or a piece of furniture, let it stop there — that is the real opening.
2. Measure the width at around 1 metre height, between the inner face of the frame on the hinge side and either the inner face of the frame or the leading edge of the leaf on the other side, whichever protrudes further in.
3. Measure the height from the finished floor — the floor as it currently sits, covering included — up to the underside of the frame. If there is a threshold, measure from the top of the threshold.
4. Measure the same spot on both sides, if the frame looks out of square. The smaller figure is the one that counts.
5. Note which way the door swings, and which side the hinges are on as seen from the room. That is half the answer to whether the item can turn the corner afterwards.

The figure that more often decides it: the turn beyond the door

A sofa that fits through a door can easily still get stuck — because it cannot be turned on the other side. The clear opening width is only one of two figures that matter when moving furniture.

The other is the width of the hallway at the door, measured at right angles to the door. If a long piece of furniture has to go through a door set in the side of a narrow hallway, the furniture has to be able to turn within that hallway. The rule of thumb: the hallway's width has to be at least as large as the furniture's shortest cross-dimension, plus a bit — and for a rigid, long piece of furniture that quickly becomes critical.

So measure four figures when planning a move or a delivery:

• the door's clear opening width and height
• the hallway's width directly opposite the door
• the ceiling height in the hallway (decides whether the item can be tipped up on its end)
• the staircase's clear width and headroom under the landing, if the route goes up a flight of stairs

Those four figures together answer "will the sofa fit in?" — the door measurement alone does not.

Common items and their sizes

Rough sizes to hold the clear opening up against (ordinary off-the-shelf items):

• Freestanding fridge/freezer: typically 55–60 cm wide, 60–65 cm deep. Fits through most internal doors if the height is clear.
• Washing machine: typically 60 cm wide, 55–60 cm deep. Weight is often more of a problem than width.
• American-style fridge-freezer: 90–95 cm wide. Often requires lifting the door leaf off its hinges.
• Three-seater sofa: 200–230 cm long, 85–100 cm deep. The depth is what has to fit through the door, if the sofa can be tipped up on its end.
• Double bed, assembled frame: 140–180 cm wide. Rarely goes through without being taken apart.
• Manual wheelchair: typically 62–70 cm wide. A clear passage under 75–80 cm becomes awkward, whatever the door is nominally called.

If an item won't fit, lifting the leaf off its hinges gains 3–5 cm, and removing the stop bead gains a further 1–2 cm. That is usually enough when it comes down to a few centimetres.

Clear opening in a floor plan

A floor plan should show the hole, not the door leaf, precisely because the hole is what every question actually turns on. If you're sending a drawing to a carpenter or a kitchen supplier, it is the hole's dimensions and its distance from the nearest room corner that they need — the door's make and the leaf's nominal size are a different conversation.

So note down three figures per door on your survey: clear width, clear height, and the distance from the corner to the edge of the frame. With those, the door can be drawn exactly where it sits.

In HouseSense every door and window carries its own measurements on the drawing: the opening's width and height and its position along the wall, so the figures can be read straight off the floor plan and are carried into the window and door schedule that comes with the report. Scan with an iPhone that has LiDAR, and the openings are found automatically during the scan; haven't scanned, you can draw them in by hand to measurements you have taken yourself with a tape measure.

Three mistakes that cost a delivery day

• Measured the door leaf instead of the hole. Typically overstates the figure by 5–8 cm, which is exactly the margin that's usually missing.
• Measured with the door taken off, then forgot it will be back on for the delivery. Agree with the movers whether the leaf can be lifted off — it takes two minutes and gains 3–5 cm.
• Forgot the floor. If new flooring is going down, the clear height shrinks by the floor's thickness — typically 1.4–2.2 cm for laminate or wood flooring over underlay. Measure from the floor that will actually be there.