for those whose home rooms are a SMIDGE too small....

You have to learn to play better position to keep the cue ball in the middle of the table and off the rails.

That's not a solution... I knew a guy who had a table in his home but the walls were close to the short rails so there wasn't enough room to cue a frozen cue ball (not even frozen in fact, you couln't cue the shot if the cue ball was 1,5 ball away from the short rail). Even tho you can argue that your posision play could be better, it still creates a "safe zone" in the table. If he run out of position he would simply leave the cue ball on the short rail area and I couldn't cue it at all, even if i could see the ball... That ruined the game for me and i couldn't enjoy it...
 
That's not a solution... I knew a guy who had a table in his home but the walls were close to the short rails so there wasn't enough room to cue a frozen cue ball (not even frozen in fact, you couln't cue the shot if the cue ball was 1,5 ball away from the short rail). Even tho you can argue that your posision play could be better, it still creates a "safe zone" in the table. If he run out of position he would simply leave the cue ball on the short rail area and I couldn't cue it at all, even if i could see the ball... That ruined the game for me and i couldn't enjoy it...
That reminds me of a table I used to play one pocket on all the time. There was a 6x6 inch post about 55 inches from the table by one of the corner pockets and about even with the short rail. If you got left frozen to that side of the table, cross-corner banks to the closer pocket were triple tough.
 
I'm curious. Is the room in your house in the basement with concrete walls or is there a chance you could do some major changes?

If it's in the house ... header out the wall and put a long opening. Let your wife put stuff on the ledge, she'll be happy. :smile:
 
Since I had the honor of having Bob Jewett post basically the same response as myself, less then 60 seconds after myself, allow me a febile attempt to one up him on a technical point...

You really need 1 inch less than I said.

If the CB is on the rail, you will probably elevate your cue about 30 degrees. If you take the Cosine of 30 degrees you will find your needed horizontal backswing is about 0.5 inch less than you expect. Therefore, including both sides of the table, you need only 14 feet.

Jeff
 
Since I had the honor of having Bob Jewett post basically the same response as myself, less then 60 seconds after myself, allow me a febile attempt to one up him on a technical point...

You really need 1 inch less than I said.

If the CB is on the rail, you will probably elevate your cue about 30 degrees. If you take the Cosine of 30 degrees you will find your needed horizontal backswing is about 0.5 inch less than you expect. Therefore, including both sides of the table, you need only 14 feet.

Jeff
Some of us keep our cues more level than that even when playing off the bumpers. ;)

But the cosine of 30 degrees is sqrt(3)/2 and that times 58 inches is only about 50 inches so you would really gain 8 inches off your original estimate on each side. I think 10 degrees elevation would give you about 1 inch on each side.

Of course all of these estimates don't allow for anything around the sides of the table.

I used to have a house with a family room that was 22x26. No posts, the main part of the house was above it, and about a mile from the San Andreas fault. It was never tested while I was there. I only had one pool table but I could have added a billiard table or a snooker table if I had gotten rid of the furniture.
 
I agree that many room size estimates are "optimistic" and really larger dimensions are preferred. For example, I prefer the idea of a minimum of 5 feet (60") from the outside edge of the table rather than from the cushion nose. This allows more room for every kind of shot on the rail, including bridging with fingertips only on the outside edge of the rail with the bulk of the bridge hand suspended over the floor. Sort of like this guy:


EfrenWithCue_IMG_0872BC.jpg
 
the cosine of 30 degrees is sqrt(3)/2 and that times 58 inches is only about 50 inches so you would really gain 8 inches off your original estimate on each side.

Of course Bob is right. Cosine(30)=0.866. Multiply that by 58.5" and you get 50.6", so a savings of 8" off each side if you elevate 30 degrees.

That will teach me to write a post when I'm standing in line getting ready to board an airplane. :*)
 
I had a pool table in my garage, my thoughts:

1) are you trying to get away from the wife, or spend more time with her? going to the garage was seen as "abandonment" by the wife.
2) uncomfortable temp in the garage was annoying....and you wont have a bathroom out there, a fridge, etc

I now have an 8 foot table INSIDE, in a room that is a little too narrow, my thoughts:

1) truly a pain to use the 48inch cue (forget about using a longer one). When you need it, it is always on the opposite side of the table from where you are.
2) you will never get a good hit or a good stroke with the shorter cue.
3) as mentioned above, you will soon learn where NOT to leave your cue ball, and it will make you take different shots, just to avoid leaving yourself near the side rails.
4) if you are just practicing, you will probably just move your CB away from the tight rails (as I do) to avoid the dreaded short cue.
5) when you play with friends, if there are not serious players, they wont care about the short cue issue, if they are real players, they wont play on your table.
6) table inside the house is loud, the wifey cannot sleep if I'm playing pool at night.
7) even with the short cue issue, I prefer the table inside v the garage.
 
Hopefully one point the OP got out of this thread is that the room size charts online are written by the industry and seem to be designed to get you to,

1) Buy a table... because HEY, you have plenty of room!
and
2) Buy a bigger, more expensive, table than you should... because HEY, you have plenty of room!
 
My formula

A friend has a Gold Crown that my 61" cue hits a wall on if I am close to the rail. A real pain in thw butt.

The easiest way to figure room size, no matter if it is a 6x12 Snooker table or a bar box, is to allow a minimum of 5.5' from the edge of the table to the nearest obstruction. I went with 6' because I use a 61" cue.

Get a roll of masking tape and measure from the walls and lay out the dimensions of the table on the floor. That will give you a look at what you have.
 
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