How much laminate, engineered wood or vinyl plank flooring do you need? Enter your rooms and pack coverage to calculate whole packs, cutting allowance and repair stock. Add a separate underlay and material cost when needed.
How to use the flooring calculator
- Measure each room's length and width. Divide an L-shaped area into rectangles that do not overlap. You can also enter a known total area.
- Enter the total area that will definitely stay uncovered. Use zero when there is nothing to subtract. The deduction applies once to the whole project.
- Read the flooring coverage from one pack. Set a cutting allowance and any extra whole packs you want to keep for repairs.
- If your flooring system needs a separate underlay, enter its installed coverage per roll or pack and its own allowance.
- Optionally enter the flooring price per pack or per square metre or foot, and the underlay price per roll or pack. Select Calculate flooring.
Room sizes support feet, inches, metres and centimetres. Areas support square feet and square metres. Use decimals with a point or comma, without fractions or thousands separators. Enter 12 ft 6 in as 12.5 ft or 150 in. Changing units converts existing measurements. After any input change, calculate again to refresh the result.
How much flooring do I need?
Calculate the covered floor area, add the cutting allowance and divide by the installed coverage of one pack. Round up to a whole pack, then add repair stock.
- Gross area = sum of length × width × quantity for all rectangles.
- Net floor area = gross area − uncovered area.
- Flooring target = net floor area × (1 + flooring allowance ÷ 100).
- Base packs = flooring target ÷ coverage per pack, rounded up.
- Packs to buy = base packs + extra repair packs.
- Purchased flooring area = packs to buy × coverage per pack.
The calculator combines all entered areas before rounding. Use one product and one pack size at a time. If rooms use different colours, products or pack sizes, calculate them separately. A combined order does not mean the flooring can run continuously through every doorway.
Example: two rooms with flooring and underlay
One room measures 4 × 3 m and another 3 × 2 m. Together they cover 18 m² with no deductions. The flooring pack covers 2.2 m². You choose a 10% cutting allowance and one extra pack for repairs.
- Flooring target: 18 × 1.10 = 19.8 m².
- Base packs: 19.8 ÷ 2.2 = 9.
- Including one repair pack: 10 packs, covering 22 m².
- For a separate underlay with a 5% allowance: 18 × 1.05 = 18.9 m².
- If an underlay roll covers 15 m², you need 2 whole rolls, providing 30 m².
At EUR 25 per m², the purchased flooring costs 22 × 25 = EUR 550. At EUR 40 per underlay roll, two rolls cost EUR 80. The material total is EUR 630. These prices are examples, not current product offers. Load example fills these values.
Notice that underlay starts from the actual 18 m² floor, not the 22 m² of purchased boards. Flooring offcuts and a repair pack do not automatically require more installed underlay.
What percentage should I allow for cutting?
The initial flooring allowance is 10%, which you can change. It is a planning input, not a promise that every layout will fit. Quick-Step's laminate guidance gives 5% for a regular room and 10% for more difficult shapes as examples. Use the guidance for the specific product and installation pattern.
Plank direction, room shape, minimum end-piece length, joint staggering, borders and whether an offcut can start another row affect the real quantity. Diagonal and herringbone floors need their own layout check. Increasing a percentage does not calculate the right ratio of left and right boards or mixed formats.
Before ordering a difficult room, ask the installer to check a board layout. This calculator does not assign boards to rows or optimise reusable cuts. It estimates the purchase quantity from area and your allowance.
How do I measure an irregular room?
Split the room into rectangles that do not overlap. For example, an L-shaped room can be entered as two rectangles. Include alcoves, bay areas and door recesses that will receive flooring. Measure at more than one point if walls are not parallel. A sketch helps prevent missing a strip or counting an area twice.
For a curved boundary, use a measured area from a suitable plan or measure smaller sections conservatively, then verify the cutting layout. The rectangle fields do not model curves, stairs or sloped surfaces.
Should I subtract furniture, cabinets or expansion gaps?
Do not subtract movable furniture. Deduct a fixed obstruction only when your installation plan says there will be no flooring beneath it. Whether a floating floor may go under fixed cabinets or an island depends on the product, so check its instructions first.
For this purchase estimate, keep the measured room footprint and do not subtract thin perimeter expansion gaps to reduce the order. The installer must still leave the required gaps. Their width, doorway breaks and maximum continuous floor size are product-specific. This calculator does not design them.
Do laminate and vinyl need the same underlay?
No. Select a layer approved for your exact flooring system, subfloor and any underfloor heating. The calculator estimates quantity; it does not select the material or check thermal, moisture or acoustic requirements.
Some planks already have a pad attached. For example, Quick-Step says not to add a separate underlay below its Alpha Vinyl Pad. Do not assume another soft layer is an upgrade. Leave the underlay calculation off when no separate layer is specified. Glued installations may require a different build-up, so follow their instructions.
How much underlay do I need?
Underlay target = net floor area × (1 + underlay allowance ÷ 100). Divide by the installed coverage of one roll or pack and round up. The initial 5% is an editable estimating allowance. It is not a rule for every underlay.
Use usable installed coverage from the supplier. A moisture-barrier flap or overlap does not necessarily add cushioned floor coverage. Follow the specified seam treatment. This calculator does not position rolls, subtract overlapping seams or calculate tapes, upstands and vapour-control layers. If the underlay footprint differs from the flooring area, calculate that separate area independently.
Why use pack coverage instead of board length and width?
A pack label describes the product sold, including its piece mix and working coverage. Multiplying a nominal plank size can accidentally include tongues, overlaps or rounded dimensions. Use the stated installed area per pack. This also allows an area estimate for packs with different board lengths.
The calculator does not report an individual board count because pack contents and useful cut lengths vary. If a product is sold as one board, enter that board's installed coverage as one purchase unit. Confirm minimum order quantities and the actual packaging with the supplier.
How is the flooring cost calculated?
With a pack price, cost = packs to buy × price per pack. With an area price, cost = purchased pack coverage × price per square metre or foot. The price applies to what you buy, including rounded packs and repair stock, rather than only the room area.
The underlay cost uses whole rolls or packs. If a price is missing, the result clearly labels the known subtotal as incomplete. Currency selection only labels entered amounts. It does not convert exchange rates. Delivery, labour, skirting, thresholds, adhesives, preparation and taxes not included in your price are outside the estimate.
Can I use this for sheet vinyl or carpet rolls?
No. Wide roll goods need a plan for roll width, seams and pattern direction. Dividing floor area by roll area can miss unusable narrow pieces. This calculator is intended for packaged laminate, engineered wood, parquet and vinyl planks using stated coverage. For ceramic tiles or mosaics, use the tile calculator.
Plan the rest of the room
Estimate wall finishes with the paint calculator or wallpaper calculator. For cabinet surfaces, use the furniture wrap calculator.
Manufacturer references
Read Quick-Step's floor measuring guidance and vinyl underlay guidance. These are examples from one manufacturer; your product's current instructions determine the installation. The photograph illustrates a flooring project and is not a measured cutting or installation plan.
