How Much Overlap to Expect (It’s About a Coffee Cup!)
One of the most common questions we hear is: “Will a SkyDry fit in my house without clothes hanging too low?”
The short answer: Most Likely. Let’s look at the numbers, the building code, and how SkyDry works in everyday Kiwi homes.
What the NZ Building Code Says
- Minimum ceiling height for new builds: 2.4 m (finished floor to finished ceiling). This is the legal standard for all habitable rooms.
- Typical new builds: Most are built to 2.55 m, which feels more spacious.
- Premium homes: Many go higher, at 2.7–3.0 m.
- Older homes: Some pre-1970s homes still have ceilings around 2.1–2.3 m.
How Many Homes Meet These Heights?
New Zealand has just over 2 million private dwellings. Based on building patterns:
- Older homes (~2.1 m): about 10% (~200,000)
- Code-minimum (2.4 m): about 20% (~400,000)
- Modern standard (2.55 m): about 60% (~1.2 million)
- Premium (2.7 m+): about 10% (~200,000)
That means 90% of homes today meet or exceed the 2.4 m requirement, with most sitting comfortably at 2.55 m or more.
Clothes Clearance Explained
We’ve chosen the T-shirt as the benchmark for clearance, because it’s the most common item people hang, and you wouldn’t usually fold it in half. An average T-shirt is about 770 mm long, so we use that as the standard case.
Other items, sheets, towels, and jeans, are longer, but in real use they’re almost always folded over the rack. That halves their hanging length, which means they sit well clear of head height. Even dresses usually hang shorter than a full T-shirt.
That’s why we plan around the T-shirt. It’s the only everyday item that reliably hangs full length.
How Much Overlap to Expect
With a typical 2.55 m ceiling:
- SkyDry drop: 135 mm
- T-shirt length: 770 mm
- Average Kiwi height: 171 cm (men ~178 cm, women ~165 cm)
This puts the bottom of a T-shirt at 1635 mm from the floor. That leaves a 75 mm crossover with the average person’s head — about the same height as a coffee cup.
Placement Matters
To make SkyDry work best, choose a less-trafficked area of the house. The garage is often ideal:
- It’s spacious and out of the way.
- When the rack is raised, it sits flush with the ceiling, so you can still park your car directly underneath.
- The laundry is often nearby, making it easy to move loads straight from the washer.
Other good options include the laundry itself, a hallway, a spare room, or even the entrance way. These are lower-traffic areas where hanging clothes won’t get in the way.
Why It Works in Everyday Use
In day-to-day life, SkyDry works because most items hang shorter than the “benchmark T-shirt.” Jeans, towels, and sheets are folded; dresses are often shorter; and only the T-shirt ever hangs full length.
And because SkyDry is retractable, you only lower it while loading or unloading. Once raised, clothes are kept up near the ceiling, out of sight and out of the way.
Even in the worst case, the overlap is only about the height of a coffee cup, and for nearly everything else, there’s more clearance.
The Bottom Line
With nearly all Kiwi homes meeting or exceeding the 2.4 m ceiling height standard, and most at 2.55 m or higher, SkyDry is designed to fit seamlessly. By using the T-shirt as the benchmark and recommending folding for longer items, we make sure clearance is never a real issue. Add smart placement, like the garage or laundry, and SkyDry becomes a space-saving drying solution that works in almost every New Zealand home.