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Flooring and tile calculator: square feet, boxes and tiles

A floor is laid by the square foot and bought by the box. Add the rooms up, add your extra for cuts, divide by the square feet printed on the carton and round up. Tile can be counted the same way, or by the piece. In the example below two rooms come to 335 square feet and 16 boxes.

Count the flooring or the tile

Type the rooms. You get the square feet to lay, the square feet to buy with your extra for cuts, the boxes, or the tiles by the piece, and lines to put on a quote.

The rooms

Length and width of each floor. A room that is not a rectangle is two rows. A new row opens when the last one is filled.

The order

A closet, a backsplash, a room you measured some other way. Leave it empty if the rooms above are all of it.

It starts at 10, what one flooring maker asks for on its own plank. The maker of your floor may ask for another figure: use theirs.

Where this number comes from

Printed on the carton. It starts empty: every product has its own.

Tile counted by the piece

Leave these empty for anything sold by the square foot in a box.

Leave it empty to count single tiles.

Type the length and the width of a room. The count shows here.

Next

Two rooms, counted

An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate

Say a kitchen is 12 by 16 feet and the room beside it 11 by 13. That is 192 and 143 square feet: 335 to lay. Say you add 10% for cuts: 368.5 square feet to buy. Say the carton holds 24 square feet: 16 boxes, which is 384 square feet on the truck.

The sum, a step at a time

  1. Each room: length times width. A room that is not a rectangle is cut into rectangles, each measured and added, which is how MSI Surfaces says to measure for its own plank.
  2. The extra for cuts goes on top of the measured floor, and only on what you buy. The floor you lay, and charge for, stays the measured one.
  3. Boxes: the square feet with the extra, divided by the square feet in one box, rounded up. Part of a box is a whole box.
  4. Tile by the piece: 144 square inches make 1 square foot, so a tile's length times its width, in inches, divided by 144, is what it covers. The square feet with the extra, divided by that and rounded up, is the tiles. Grout joints are left out, which errs on the side of a tile too many.
  5. Boxes of tile: the tiles divided by the tiles in a box, rounded up.

How much extra: what four makers say

  • Vinyl plank. MSI Surfaces says to add 10% to the total for mistakes, cuts and damage. The box starts there.
  • Hardwood. Mullican Flooring recommends adding 7 to 12 percent for waste and cuts, depending on the skill of the installer and the layout of the space, and says a diagonal installation will result in more waste than a traditional one.
  • Tile. Daltile recommends buying approximately 10% more tile than you expect to need, and keeping it, so a broken tile can be replaced from the same lot.
  • Tile in a pattern. clé, another tile maker, says to order 10% more than the measurements indicate and 15% for intricate patterns or diagonal layouts, and further down the same page, to consider up to 25% extra for a diagonal pattern.
  • Four makers, four figures, each for its own product. No figure from the wood flooring or the tile trade associations is here: theirs are in manuals that are sold, and we have not read them. The maker of the floor you are laying has the figure that counts.

A box is whatever its carton says

The box for the square feet in a carton starts empty on purpose. MSI says most boxes of its luxury vinyl cover from 18 to 25 square feet, and that this may vary. Any figure we filled in would be wrong for most floors.

Until you type it, the counter gives the square feet to buy and stops there. That is already enough to ask a supplier for a price.

Bought more than the floor needs? The line for the boxes says how many square feet they hold. The difference is what is left over for repairs.

What this count is not

  • It does not count underlayment, thinset, grout, baseboard or thresholds. They go on the quote as lines of their own.
  • It does not know your layout. A pattern, a diagonal, a room full of corners or a large tile each change the extra, and the box for it is yours.
  • It does not price anything. TailGateBid has no price data, and the box for what a carton costs you is on the page that prices the job.

From the count to the quote

The first line under the calculator is the measured floor, by the square foot: that is the laying. The next is the boxes, with the extra in them: that is the material. Two lines, so the price of the floor itself can change without the price of laying it moving.

Next, work out what to charge to lay it: the boxes at what one costs you, the hours of getting the room ready and of laying, and a price for each square foot. Or put the lines on an estimate and print it.

TailGateBid for flooring and tile has a quote worked through with plank in two rooms and tile in a bathroom, and shows three floors side by side as options on one quote.

Where each number comes from

  • The box for the extra for cuts starts at 10 percent. For its own vinyl plank, MSI Surfaces says to add that much to the total for mistakes, cuts and damage. Starting there is our choice. Another maker may ask for another figure for its own floor: use theirs. MSI Surfaces, how to measure a space for luxury vinyl flooring, . (our choice, change it)
  • A square foot is 144 square inches. That is how a tile measured in inches becomes the square feet it covers.

On a TailGateBid quote the laying is a line by the square foot and the boxes are a line of their own, so a change of floor changes one of them.

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By TailGateBid. .

A count is as good as the measurements you type. What is printed on the bag, the can, the pail or the box you buy decides, and so do the plans.