Flooring Calculator

Work out how many boxes of flooring you need for one or more rooms, with an allowance for cuts and waste, what you will have left over, and what it costs. Works for laminate, vinyl plank, engineered wood and tile sold by the box. Your inputs stay in your browser.

Your rooms and flooring

Rooms

Split an L-shaped room into two rectangles.

The flooring

About 5% for a simple room, 10% for a typical layout, 15% to 20% for diagonal or herringbone.

Printed on the carton.

Cost (optional)

14 boxes for 290.0 sq ft. See full results

Example: a 12 × 15 ft room and a 10 × 11 ft room, 10% extra, in boxes covering 23.91 sq ft. Enter your numbers to update.

Your flooring estimate

Boxes to buy
14
At 23.91 sq ft per box
Floor area
290.0 sq ft
319.0 sq ft with 10% extra
Left over
44.7 sq ft
The boxes cover 334.7 sq ft

Area by room

RoomSizeArea
Room 1 12 × 15 ft180.0 sq ft
Room 2 10 × 11 ft110.0 sq ft
Total 290.0 sq ft

Add a price per square foot or per box to estimate the cost.

Keep a box or two of leftovers for future repairs; dye lots can change.

How to calculate flooring

  1. Measure each room's length and width in feet and multiply. The example's rooms are 180 and 110 square feet, 290 in total. If you measure in inches, divide square inches by 144 to get square feet (NIST: tables of units of measurement).
  2. Add extra for cuts and mistakes: 10% takes it to 319 square feet.
  3. Divide by the coverage on the carton and round up: 319 ÷ 23.91 → 14 boxes, covering 334.7 square feet.

How much extra to allow

Cuts at walls, doorways and closets waste some boards or tiles. Around 5% is typical for a simple rectangular room, 10% for a home with several rooms and closets, and 15% to 20% for diagonal, herringbone or chevron patterns. For the example, 5% means 13 boxes and 20% means 15. The installer's guidance for your product takes precedence.

What this calculator does not include

  • Underlayment, transitions, trim and adhesive, which are usually sold separately.
  • Non-rectangular rooms. Split them into rectangles and use the extra room rows.
  • Installation labor.

Methodology and testing

Automated tests compare areas, box counts, leftovers and costs with an independent calculation, and check that an area that is an exact multiple of a box's coverage is not rounded up an extra box. How we build and test calculators.

Sources

  • Square Footage Calculator

    Square feet of a rectangle, circle, triangle or trapezoid in any unit, with square yards, square meters, acres and cost.

  • Drywall Calculator

    Wall and ceiling area less doors and windows, waste, and sheets for 4×8, 4×10 and 4×12 ft sizes, with cost.

  • Home Equity Loan Calculator

    Monthly payment, borrowing limit at common CLTV caps, cash received after closing costs, term comparison and amortization.