Laminate Flooring Calculator
With room length 20 ft, room width 14 ft, coverage per box 20.1 sq ft, price per box 52 usd, laminate flooring comes to 16 boxes — boxes to buy. It is reached in 7 steps, the last of which is ceil(302.4 / 20.1), and each one is printed on the page with its numbers filled in. The formula is the one published by NIST Handbook 44, Appendix C, not an approximation fitted to it.
Boxes of laminate, vinyl plank or engineered flooring for a room, with the waste a plank floor actually needs.
Formula and sources checked · How we check
Room length 20 ft, Room width 14 ft, Coverage per box 20.1 sq ft, Layout Straight, along the room
16 boxes
Boxes to buy for the example below. Editing a field recomputes the calculator below; this figure holds the answer the page was loaded with.
It is written into the HTML rather than drawn by a script, so a search engine reading this page without running JavaScript still finds an answer.
- Floor area
20 * 14280 sq ft- Waste for this layout
8 %- Area to buy
280 * (1 + 8 / 100)302.4 sq ft- Boxes needed
ceil(302.4 / 20.1)16 boxes- Spare area in the last box
16 * 20.1 - 302.419.2 sq ft- Underlay rolls (100 sq ft)
ceil(280 / 100)3 rolls- Flooring cost
16 * 52$832
Several at once
A job is rarely one of anything. Work out the first, add it, change the figures and add the next — the list keeps what each line was, and totals them.
Worked example
A 20 by 14 room is 280 square feet. A straight layout wastes about 8%, so buy for 302.4 — fifteen boxes at 20.1 sq ft each, which leaves 1.1 sq ft over for the offcuts box.
How to work it out yourself
- 1.Measure the room at its widest in both directions and include doorways and closets you are flooring through.
- 2.Pick the layout before you order. A diagonal run wastes roughly twice what a straight one does, and herringbone more again.
- 3.Buy the whole job in one order. Laminate and vinyl are made in batches and two batches of the same product can differ visibly in shade.
The formula
- Floor area
20 * 14 - Waste for this layout
- Area to buy
280 * (1 + 8 / 100) - Boxes needed
ceil(302.4 / 20.1) - Spare area in the last box
16 * 20.1 - 302.4 - Underlay rolls (100 sq ft)
ceil(280 / 100) - Flooring cost
16 * 52
Source: NIST Handbook 44, Appendix C — general tables of units of measurement
Questions people actually ask
- How much waste should I add for flooring?
- About 8% for a straight layout in a simple rectangular room, 15% for a diagonal one and 20% or more for herringbone. The rule of thumb of "10% always" comes from carpet, where the geometry is different — a plank floor wastes at every wall, every doorway and every direction change.
- Should I keep the offcuts?
- Keep a full unopened box if you can. Planks damage, and a discontinued product or a different dye lot will not match. A box of the original batch put in the loft is the cheapest repair insurance there is.
- Do I need underlay?
- For laminate, almost always — it takes up small subfloor irregularities and cuts the hollow sound. Some vinyl plank comes with it attached, and laying a second layer under that voids most warranties. Read the product before buying underlay separately.
- Does the direction of the planks matter?
- For appearance, yes: running the length of the room makes it look longer, and running toward the main light source hides the joints. For quantity, only slightly — the waste is driven by how many cuts meet a wall, which is why a long thin room laid the wrong way wastes more.
Related
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- Carpet CalculatorSquare yards of carpet from a 12 ft roll, with the seam waste a room wider than the roll actually costs.
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