Flooring calculator
Flooring calculator:
boxes and planks
Calculate laminate, vinyl plank, engineered wood or parquet for your room. Compare layouts and estimate floor area, full boxes, individual planks, underlay, perimeter trim and cutting waste.
Enter measurements
Based on your result
What you'll need
Quantities update after every calculation. Choose the brand and finish that match the selected floor type.
- Flooring boxes
- Full boxes including layout waste
- Calculate above
- Floor planks
- Estimated individual boards
- —
- Underlay
- Acoustic layer below the floor
- —
- Perimeter trim
- Skirting or matching edge trim
- —
- Installation kit
- Mallet, tapping block and spacers
- 1 kit
The maths
How we work out your flooring
We start from the room's footprint and take off anything you won't be covering — islands, a hearth or built-in units. That usable area is padded for offcuts based on how the planks are laid, then divided by the coverage printed on a box and rounded up to whole packs. Underlay is worked out separately from the un-padded area.
order area = usable area × pattern waste
boxes = ⌈ order area ÷ box coverage ⌉
underlay = ⌈ usable area ÷ 100 sq ft ⌉
- +7%
- straight rows
- +10%
- staggered / brick
- +12%
- diagonal & basket
- +15%
- herringbone / chevron
- 16–24 sq ft
- per box, by type
- ft ↔ m
- converted automatically
- 01
Measure the footprint
Length multiplied by width gives the gross room area before anything is taken off.
- 02
Remove exclusions
Permanent islands, hearths, kitchen units or built-ins are subtracted so you only buy for the floor you can see.
- 03
Apply layout waste
Straight rows waste the least; staggered adds a little, and herringbone or chevron need the most because every plank is cut on an angle.
- 04
Divide by box coverage
The padded order area is divided by the coverage on a pack, which differs between laminate, vinyl, engineered wood and parquet.
- 05
Round up to full boxes
Shops sell whole packs only, so the order is always rounded up — the spare planks become your attic offcuts for future repairs.
Good to know
Flooring questions, answered
It depends on the layout. Straight rows need about 7%, staggered joints around 10%, and diagonal or basket-weave roughly 12%. Herringbone and chevron are the hungriest at about 15% because every plank is cut at an angle. The calculator applies the right figure once you pick a pattern.
That varies by product, so the calculator works in area rather than plank count. Laminate boxes cover about 22 sq ft, vinyl around 24, engineered wood about 20 and parquet roughly 16. You can overwrite the box coverage with the figure on your chosen product.
Floating laminate, vinyl and engineered floors almost always need an underlay for comfort, sound and a small amount of levelling. We estimate one roll per 100 sq ft of usable area. Glue-down parquet is the usual exception — untick underlay if you are bonding directly to the subfloor.
Yes. If flooring runs up to the units rather than under them, enter their footprint as an exclusion so you are not buying boards for hidden areas. If you plan to floor underneath first, leave the exclusion at zero.
As a rule, lay planks along the longest wall or towards the main window so the light runs down the joints and the room feels longer. Direction does not change the quantity, but it does change how the finished floor reads.
Retailers sell sealed packs, and dye lots can differ between orders — so buying the exact remainder later risks a visible colour mismatch. Rounding up now means the spare planks come from the same batch, ideal for future repairs.
The gap around the perimeter is left empty and later hidden by skirting or beading, so it does not need its own material. The waste margin already covers the offcuts created when planks meet the walls.
It is tuned for plank and parquet flooring sold by the box. Ceramic and porcelain tiles have their own breakage and grout maths, so use the Tile calculator for those; carpet is sold by the roll and measured differently.