I have a site with the following structure:
<
This trick does work: Adding a final element in your section of HTML with a style of clear:both;
<div style="clear:both;"></div>
Everything before that will be included in the height.
height : <percent>
will only work if you have all parent nodes with specified percent height with a fixed height in pixels, ems, etc. on top level. That way, the height will cascade down to your element.
You can specify 100% to html and body elements as @Travis stated earlier to have the page height cascading down to your nodes.