Flooring Calculator: How Many Packs of Laminate or Wood?
Enter your room sizes and the coverage printed on the pack, and we'll work out how many packs of laminate, engineered wood, LVT or parquet to order, with wastage, underlay and beading. The figure that changes the order most is the laying pattern: a straight lay needs far less spare than herringbone or a diagonal, so pick it before you trust any total.
Measure each part of the floor
Split L-shaped rooms into rectangles. Measure wall to wall in metres, into door reveals and bay windows.
Leave out fitted kitchen units, a built-in bath or a fixed hearth if the floor will not run under them. Pack coverage is printed on the box and on the product page; it differs between ranges, so do not guess it.
Skip underlay if your flooring has it attached or is being glued down. Beading or scotia covers the expansion gap where you are not removing the skirting; doorways get threshold strips instead.
How the calculation works
We add up the area of each rectangle, take off anything the floor will not cover, then add the spare for your laying pattern. That total is divided by the pack coverage and rounded up, because suppliers sell whole packs. Underlay uses the net area plus 5% for trimming and overlaps at the edges. Beading is based on the perimeter of the main area, less your doorways, with 10% extra for mitred corners and offcuts that are too short to use.
Worked example: a 4.6 m by 3.8 m living room is 17.48 m². With 10% spare that becomes 19.23 m². At 2.22 m² per pack, 19.23 divided by 2.22 is 8.66, so you order 9 packs, which covers 19.98 m².
Before you order
- Buy every pack from the same batch. Colour and finish can shift between production runs, so check the batch number on the boxes when they arrive.
- Keep one unopened pack if you have room to store it. It makes a later repair much easier if the range is discontinued.
- Leave the boards to acclimatise in the room, flat and in their packs, for as long as the manufacturer says before fitting.
- Leave the expansion gap the fitting instructions ask for around every wall, pipe and threshold. Laminate and wood floors move with the seasons.
- Herringbone packs are often sold as left and right blocks. Check whether the stated coverage is per pack of mixed blocks or per handed pack before you divide.
The Folio
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