Problem:
The floor plan of a house has the shape of an L obtained by suitably joining together four squares whose side measures 10 meters. The side walls are all 10 meters high and the roof of the house has six faces starting from the six side walls and inclined at with respect to a horizontal plane.
Determine the volume of the house (that is, of the solid bounded by the six faces of the roof, by the six side walls, and by the horizontal plane).
Solution
Solution:
The attic seen from above has the shape of figure 1, since the meeting points of the various faces of the roof are equidistant from the edges of the base because all the faces have the same inclination with respect to the horizontal.
We observe that we can transform the attic as in figure 2 without altering its volume. It therefore suffices to calculate the volume of this new figure. We observe that the central part of the new figure is a prism with triangular base, with height meters. The base triangle is isosceles with base angles of and base of length 10 meters. Therefore the height of the triangle measures meters.
The volume of the prism is therefore:
Figure 1
Figure 2
The two remaining parts of the solid can be joined together to form a pyramid with a square base of side 10 meters and height of meters. The volume of the pyramid is therefore:
The total volume of the attic is: