What is the standard ceiling height?
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The standard ceiling height in Australian homes is 2.4 metres. New builds increasingly specify 2.55 or 2.7 metres on the ground floor, and period homes often run 3 metres or more. The National Construction Code sets a minimum of 2.4 metres for habitable rooms and 2.1 metres for bathrooms, laundries and hallways.
What the extra height buys
Proportion. A 2.7 metre ceiling changes how a room reads more than almost any other single decision, because it alters the ratio between the walls and the floor plan. It also lets doors, joinery and window heads run taller, which is where the effect actually comes from.
What it costs
More than the ceiling. Taller walls mean more cladding, plaster, paint, longer studs, taller doors and larger windows, and a bigger volume to heat and cool. Adding 300 millimetres across a whole house is not a small line item.
Where to spend it
The rooms you gather in. Raising the living and dining ceilings and leaving bedrooms at 2.4 gives you most of the benefit for a fraction of the cost.