Pool Tables - How do I measure my room?

So you’ve been on our website and you’ve decided you want to treat yourself to that pool table you’ve aways dreamt of. We have hundreds of pool tables for sale each with their own quality and style, deciding on which one to purchase can be quite tricky.

Taking the pool tables cosmetic differences out of the equation for now, the most important thing to consider is the overall size of the table. Pool tables can vary hugely in size with some of our smallest tables coming in at around 6ft right up to 9ft. Some of our more exotic pool tables can come in sizes right up to 12 ft which are specifically designed for those customers who are interested in playing billiards or snooker.

How much room do I need for my pool table? You may ask. Well, the room size for a pool table can vary depending on the style of table you go for. Many recommend at least 5ft of cueing space on each side  of the table to have a reasonable amount of space to play but often this isn't available. Many people want their dream pool table but have limited space.

Luckily for you, pool tables range from 6ft - 9ft depening on what make, mode and style. You can even purchase small cues if space is limited around the table.
 
Below we go through the space recommended for English and American pool tables and which one you should go for depending on what you want.

The first thing to consider before looking through our pool tables is, how much space do you have in your home or office to play? You must take into consideration any other furniture you might be looking to put in your room before you calculate the space.

Lets start off thinking about English pool tables rather than the larger American pool tables. These are typically more popular in the UK as our homes tend not to have an open plan style or be quite as spacious as American homes. English pool tables come in 6ft, 7ft and 8ft. A 7ft pool table is what you are most likely to find in your local pub. It is the size of table that pool league is played on therefore we should use this more popular size as our first example.

If you are looking at one our our English pool tables it is most likely you will be looking at a 7ft model. So let’s figure out how to measure the room for this size of table. English pool tables are sized based on their external measurements, so when we say a table is 7ft in size, we mean the physical size of the table. The playing surfaces on all English pool tables always come in 1ft shorter than it’s overall, physical size. So a 7ft table has a 6ft playing surface, one of our 6ft pool tables would have a 5ft playing surface.

The next consideration to make is what size cue do you think you would like to play with on one of our pool tables? The most common sizes are 57” and 48”. Most customers will play with a 48” when starting out as it can feel that you have more control over the cue and your shots. We would not recommend a 57” cue for shorter adults but of course, it is all down to personal preference.

So let’s say your have your eye on some of the 7ft pool tables we have for sale, now we need to figure out the ideal space for that table in your home. When working this out we are actually are most interested in the playing surface measurement. All these exact measurements can be found on each product page on our website but roughly speaking, a 7ft pool table will have a 6ft x 3ft playing surface.

So if we are thinking of using a 48” cue which is 4ft, you need to make sure there is adequate cueing space around the entire pool table. So the quick calculation for this is to take the length of the table and add the 48”/4ft cue to each end which gives you 14ft. The playing surface width of the 7ft pool table is 3ft so this time we add the 3ft of the pool table to the 4ft either side of the table which gives us a measurement of 11ft. Therefore the ideal size room to accommodate one of our 7ft pool tables would be 14ft x 11ft.

It is rare that we will sell a pool table to customers who have the ideal sized rooms. As long as our customers understand that if the measurement of their room is smaller, there may be some shots that would require a shorter cue. Luckily, lots of our pool tables come with a good selection of cues including 57”, 48” and 42”, we even offer 36” cues for tight spaces and small children. 

You can also check out our games room designer to measure up your room and table to find out exactly how much space you will have. This is a great tool and we recommend you use it prior to getting a table. 

It's no surprise pool tables require a lot of space, not just the physical space it occupies but playing space. The benefit for measuring, phoning us or coming to our 3 showrooms is that you can get a real feel for how the pool table will look, fit and play in your room of choice.

Make sure to check out our exclusive signature pool tables range. Designed by us, for you. We have managed to provide you several slate bed models of tables with adjustments at a cheaper price than ever before.

We now have over 40 pool tables across 3 of our showrooms making it the largest games room showroom in Europe! Poeple travel from across the continent to visit us. It's the only place you can physically  see and compare your favurite pool tables

If you would like any advice on pool tables or measuring your rooms for pool tables then please feel free to give our helpful team a call and we will be more than glad to talk you through things.

Written By: Michelle Beresford