Flooring Calculator
Work out how many cartons — or planks — to order before the truck shows up. Enter the room, add a waste margin for cuts and offcuts, and get the count for laminate, vinyl plank, engineered, or hardwood floors.
Read this off the carton — coverage varies a lot by product (often 15–30 ft²).
Add this to also see how many cartons that works out to.
Advanced: extra area & price
Add square footage for other sections so it's all in one order.
Formula & how it works
Floor area = length × width, plus any additional area you enter. With waste: area × (1 + waste).
By carton: area with waste ÷ coverage per carton, rounded up.
By plank: one plank covers plank length × plank width ÷ 144 ft²; planks = area with waste ÷ plank area, rounded up.
Worked example
A 12 × 15 ft room is 180 ft². With 10% waste that's 198 ft². At 20 ft² per carton, that's 10 cartons. Counting 48 × 6 in planks (2 ft² each) instead, the same 198 ft² needs 99 planks.
Ordering flooring
Let the carton set the number
Nearly all laminate, luxury vinyl plank, and engineered flooring ships in sealed cartons that cover a fixed square footage. That coverage is printed on the box, and it changes with plank size and product line — so always enter the number from your carton rather than assuming. You buy whole cartons, so the count rounds up.
How much waste to add
A plain rectangular room with a straight lay wastes very little — 5 to 10 percent is plenty. Diagonal and herringbone layouts, rooms full of closets and jogs, and long rigid planks all leave offcuts that are hard to reuse, so lean toward 15 percent or more. It's also worth keeping one unopened carton from the same dye lot; boards from a different run rarely match exactly if you need a repair later.
Acclimate before you cut
Most wood and laminate flooring needs to sit in the room for a couple of days to settle to its humidity before installation, and many warranties require it. Order early enough to leave time for that step.