Should ground floor be 0th floor or 1st floor?

[Nutterbug]

I wonder if this debate has ever been raised here before.

[youngregina]

I think it should be called the 1st floor. It only makes sense. If you really think about it, the main floor is litterally the first. Think about it this way. You have the 4th floor, then the 3rd, then the 2nd, then the main/1st floor. This is just my perspective on it.

[PuyoPiyo]

I vote 1st floor because if we label it as "0" then there is no floor, it just doesn't make sense.

[Nutterbug]

But think of it from a mathematical perspective.

0th floor would imply that it is 0 floors away from the ground, and 1st would imply that it is 1 floor away. Though it should be denoted with a G instead of a 0, and the rooms on it should be 2 digits, whereas those on the 1st should be in the 100's, 2nd should be 200's, and so on.

There should also be a year 0 before the birth of Christ.

[Ayreonaut]

But the ceiling of the first floor would be 1 floor off the ground. The roof of a 100 storey building will be 100 floors up.

[KevinFromTexas]

1st. Most elevators when you push '1' take you to the ground floor regardless whether the building has any sub-levels. Sometimes elevators replace the 1 with a G instead just to help some people with the confusion like if it does indeed have sub-levels.

0th floor would imply that it is 0 floors away from the ground, and 1st would imply that it is 1 floor away.

I get what you're saying. But the 1st floor is also the "first" floor to cover the ground since it sits right on top of it.

As for room numbering, most buildings that have "rooms" either residences or hotel rooms rarely have any on the first floor/ground floor. Most times the ground floor is reserved for lobby, elevator space and retail uses or some other type of use, conference/meeting space and maintenance. In that case most room numbers would begin on the 2nd floor. This isn't always the case, but with most hotels and residential buildings it seems to be. In that case it would be rare to have any residences with a numbers "100-199". Other types of buildings may have rooms on the first floor where it's not as crucial to have privacy. Cheaper hotels and even some hospitals do this oddly enough.

[raggedy13]

I'd be curious to see a British person's perspective as, from my experience, they label elevators/buildings in Britain with Ground, then 1, 2, 3, etc, Ground having units with 2 digits, 1st floor with 100s, 2nd with 200s etc, just as Nutterbug described. I found it slightly confusing at first.

[Nutterbug]

If you jump out the first floor window, how many storeys do you fall?

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by Nutterbug

If you jump out the first floor window, how many storeys do you fall?

That's funny.

You do make a good point. I guess humans are such a visually oriented creature that when we look at a building, and if there's 10 windows from top to bottom, then it must have 10 floors. And that first one must be the first. It's just how our brains work. A lot of the ways we look at things seem right at first, but at 2nd glance seem backwards.

[Peanuthead]

Living in Edinburgh, Scotland it's all 'Ground, 1st, 2nd, 3rd'. I have yet to see a building that uses the other (and IMO more sensible) way in the UK to use it.

[SD_Phil]

Originally Posted by Nutterbug

If you jump out the first floor window, how many storeys do you fall?

So a regular suburban home has 0 floors? Nah, that doesn't make sense. There's no such thing as a zero floor. And think of it, as you suggested, mathematically.

If I build 99 times the number of floors on top of that suburban house, I would still have zero floors (0 X 99 + 0= 0) BUT

if we count it as the first floor then we get the right answer (1 X 99 +1 = 100)

[Nutterbug]

Originally Posted by SD_Phil

So a regular suburban home has 0 floors? Nah, that doesn't make sense. There's no such thing as a zero floor. And think of it, as you suggested, mathematically.

If I build 99 times the number of floors on top of that suburban house, I would still have zero floors (0 X 99 + 0= 0) BUT

if we count it as the first floor then we get the right answer (1 X 99 +1 = 100)

Maybe what I should have said is that the ground floor should be called "Floor 0" though it is actually the first floor.

Kind of like how the 20th century is the 1900's.

[Nowhereman1280]

I say 0th since that is freaking weird. If I ever succeed at development and get into building new highrises I'm going to make buildings that are numbered like that...

[lawsond]

the concept of zero only works mathematically when you are dealing with a theoretical progression to infinity.
such as the calculation of time.
if you are simply labelling time, such as the number of days in a month, that has a definite end, there is no zero...there is no january the zero-th.
the number of floors in a building has a definite end, and is a device for labeling a finite number, so there is no zero.

the whole zero thing really f**ks with peoples' minds when it comes to when the new millennium starts.
the old dudes who started the calendar had no concept of zero...so they saw the years as a labelling device...hence a.d. began in the year one. they imagined time had a finite end that could simply be catalogued.
we tend to think of time as open ended and starting at zero as a way to calculate rather than label. so most people celebrated the new millennium in 2000 imagining a.d. beginning at zero as that is the way modern minds work.
technically, to the ancients who had no concept of zero, time begins at one so the millennium began jan. first 2001.

so that is why buildings and other finite objects have no floor zero.

[Nutterbug]

If the building has a basement, then the ground floor wouldn't be the first floor either, would it?

[mhays]

Any one-building change would cause confusion, basically forever. It might even be illegal due to stuff like fireman's access.

Ground = first makes sense anyway. You're on a floor, and it's the first one. Simple.

Let the Brits have their way. They also say "the team are getting on the bus" and we don't want to do that either.

[cbotnyse]

I think the answer is floor 0, but it should not be labeled as such. In my building, floor zero is the lobby, and labeled "L" in the elevator and 1 is the first level above that.

[Nutterbug]

Originally Posted by mhays

Any one-building change would cause confusion, basically forever. It might even be illegal due to stuff like fireman's access.

Ground = first makes sense anyway. You're on a floor, and it's the first one. Simple.

Let the Brits have their way. They also say "the team are getting on the bus" and we don't want to do that either.

Buildings here are free to take out the 4th and 13th floors at will.

Is it just the Brits that number the ground floor 0? How about the rest of Europe?

[big T]

^ all the European countries I've been to number it G, 1, 2, etc. Makes little sense to me -- the building has 10 usable levels, so it should add up to 10 floors. Starting at 0 somehow implies that this floor is unused. I guess you could argue that in the case of a hotel or office tower lobby, but still from a structural perspective it's a floor like any other, so it should count.

"If you jump out the first floor window, how many storeys do you fall?"
That actually works only if you start at 1: you jump from the first window starting from the ground, and fall the height of one window -- chances are the window sits roughly in the middle of the floor height-wise.

[J. Will]

From what I've seen, many of the newer buildings in Toronto not only have no 13th floor, but no 4th, 14th, 24th, or 34th floor either because I guess 4 is bad luck for Chinese.