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How to figure out how many pews will fit in your sanctuary: An Insider's Secret
by Elias Villavicencio

How do you figure out how many pews will fit in your sanctuary?  For many years, it would take one of those pew guys to
come to your church, measure out the room and give you a number.  Of course since most of us hate math, it always
looks impressive when that pew guy comes up with a number and says, "We can fit 44 pews in here, 14 foot each and
we can fit approximately 410 people in this room." I'm going to teach you how to do that.

While working with an old pew guy, Smitty, here's how he taught me to do it.

First thing you have to know, that this only works if you have a rectangular or square sanctuary/room.  It will also work for
those odd shape rooms but you have to break the rooms down into quadrants.  However, for matters for this article and
knowing that the majority of sanctuaries, chapels or funeral halls are rectangular or square, I will show you how easy it
is to figure out how many pews will fit in the room.  

The first thing we need to know is how big the room is by measuring the length and the width of the room.
Let's say for this example that the length of
this room is 75 feet and that the width of
this room is 46 feet.

By the American Disabilities Act of 1990,
there must be enough room in the aisles to
allow for a wheelchair to pass (at least
36").  That is why we leave 3 feet for the
side aisles.  We also leave at least 5 to 6
feet in the center aisle for weddings,
caskets and enough room for people to
come in and out of the pews.  

PLEASE NOTE: In some areas, the fire
codes may be different and may require
other measurements for aisle space.  
Please check with your local Fire
Marshall for those numbers.

Now that we know that we have 46 feet
width (W) and we will need to subtract the
side aisles (SA) and the center aisle (CA).  
     46'(W) - 3'(SA) - 3'(SA) - 5'(CA) = 35'

So we know we have 35 feet.  We divide
that by two and we have 17' pews for each
side. So our pews in this example are 17
feet in length.

Now we take our length of 75'.  We will have
to subtract a comfortable space for the front
of church (worship space).  Normally, this
space is about 8' to 10' in a room this size.  
So let's say we opt for the larger worship
space of 10'.  Then we will subtract the
back aisle where people will come in and
out of the sanctuary. We will also opt for the larger space of 5' for the back aisle.  So we will subtract from our length of
75' (L), 10' (WS) for the worship space and 5' (BA) for the back aisle.  
     75' (L) - 10' (WS) - 5' (BA) = 60'

Now for the easy part.  We are left with 60'.  We take 60' and multiply it by 12".  In other words, we will turn the 60' into
inches.  Then we divide that number by 36" (which is the space between pew ends). This will give us the number of
pews we can have on both sides of the room.  
     60' (L) * 12 (inches) / 36" (length between pews) = 20

In this example, we can have two sides of 20 pews, equalling 40 pews in total at a length of 17' per pew.  

If you multiply 40 (number of pews) by 17 (length) then multiply by 12 to give you the number in inches and divide by 18
(inches given for each person) this will give you the total number of people, you can sit in this room.  
     40 (pews) * 17 (length of pews) * 12 (inches) / 18 (inches per person) = 453 people

You can fit at least 450 people in this room.  

There you have it.  Now you can also do this on your own.