Flooring Calculator

How Much Flooring Do I Need?

A 12 × 12 ft room takes 8 boxes of vinyl plank: 144 square feet plus 10% for cuts is 158.4, and the boxes hold 20.1 square feet each. With installation, the floor costs about $790, $5.49 a square foot.

Boxes by room size, straight lay:

Laminate at 19.63, vinyl plank at 20.1 and engineered hardwood at 25 square feet a box. Check your box label and enter it in the calculator.

Cost of a 12 × 12 ft room by floor type, straight lay:

Laminate and engineered hardwood include two rolls of underlayment. Tile costs about the same as vinyl plank to buy, but its installation is the most expensive here.

How to Calculate Flooring

Multiply the length by the width, add the extra for cuts, divide by the square feet in a box and round up:

For an L-shaped room, split the floor into rectangles and add them:

Here 144 + 30 = 174 sq ft, or 191.4 sq ft with 10% extra. In laminate at 19.63 sq ft a box that is 10 boxes, plus 2 rolls of underlayment.

Extra for Cuts by Floor and Pattern

From the makers' installation guides; the hardwood figures are Bruce's minimums, and the tile figures sit within the ranges Fireclay and Artistic Tile give.

Expansion Gap and Acclimation

• Expansion gap: ¼ inch for LifeProof vinyl plank, ⅜ inch for Pergo laminate (½ inch over 40 ft), ¾ inch for solid hardwood (Bruce).
• Acclimation: Pergo laminate 48 to 96 hours in the room; LifeProof vinyl plank needs none.

The gap is hidden under the baseboard or a quarter round; count the trim pieces for the room. For tile with grout and thinset, count the tiles and grout instead.

How to Measure a Room for Flooring

• Measure wall to wall at the widest points, in feet, and round up to the next inch; the extra covers walls that are not square.
• Add closets and nooks as their own rectangles, and doorways where the floor runs through to the next room.
• Leave out kitchen islands and built-in cabinets, which the floor goes around, not under.
• Several rooms with the same floor: add the areas, then apply the extra once.
• Stairs are counted by the tread and riser, not the floor area; most makers sell matching stair nosing by the piece.

The extra is for the cut ends at every wall and for planks that come out of the box damaged. Small rooms and halls lose more to cuts than open rooms, so lean toward the higher figure there.

Boxes of Flooring by Square Footage

For a whole floor, boxes by area with a straight lay and each floor's usual extra, 10% for vinyl plank and laminate and 5% for engineered hardwood:

Boxes of 20.1 square feet for vinyl plank, 19.63 for laminate and 25 for engineered hardwood. Box sizes differ by product, so type yours from the label; a house of many small rooms loses more to cuts than one open floor.

Flooring in Square Meters

For a room measured in meters, the floor area is length × width in m². The same products, laminate at 1.82 m² and vinyl plank at 1.87 m² a box, with 10% for cuts:

Switch the calculator to Metric to enter the room in meters and the box in m². A room measured in inches works the same way in square inches: 150 × 130 in is 19,500 square inches, ÷ 144 = 135.4 square feet.

Underlayment, Trim and Transitions

A floating laminate or engineered floor goes over a foam underlayment, bought in 100 square foot rolls; the calculator adds 5% for the overlaps and trimming. The gap at the walls is covered by baseboard or quarter round, one piece of trim along the whole perimeter less the doors:

Where the new floor meets another floor at a doorway, it needs a transition strip: a T-molding between floors of the same height, a reducer down to a lower floor. Count one for each doorway; the makers sell them to match each floor.

Odd-Shaped Rooms and Stairs

• Angled walls and bays: split the floor into rectangles and right triangles; a triangle is half its base times its height. A 6 × 4 ft corner cut off at an angle takes 12 square feet off the rectangle.
• Curved walls: measure to the widest point of the curve and treat it as a rectangle; the extra covers the waste.
• Stairs: each step is its tread plus its riser times the width. A straight stair of 13 steps, 36 in wide with 10 in treads and 7½ in risers, is 56.9 square feet, plus 13 stair nose pieces, which the maker sells to match.

Add up the pieces and enter the total with Measure set to Square feet. Stairs cut more than a floor does, since every tread and riser is a separate piece, so use the higher extra there.

Flooring Cost per Square Foot

Per square foot at the calculator's prices, all editable; the last column includes the extra for cuts and the underlayment, spread over the 144 square feet. Tile costs about the same as vinyl plank to buy, but laying it takes the longest, so it costs the most installed.

Before the new floor goes down, the old one usually comes up and the subfloor has to be flat and sound. A bouncy floor points to the framing; check the joist span. Low spots under tile or vinyl are filled with self-leveling underlayment; price the self-leveler too. For carpet, sold by the square yard off 12 ft rolls, use our carpet calculator.