# Flooring Calculator

Created by Bogna Szyk
Reviewed by Dominik Czernia, PhD and Jack Bowater
Last updated: Dec 01, 2022

Installing a new floor in your home can be a substantial challenge - unless you're using our flooring calculator! Whether you're constructing your dream house and choosing floor finishes or just replacing old and used panels in an apartment, you are bound to deal with the same problems - measuring the space and estimating the cost of flooring. And while the calculations are relatively simple, we know math is the last thing you want to do while you're renovating.

We created this square-foot calculator for flooring to take the maths off your plate. For a more generic tool, you can visit our square footage calculator. Thanks to this tool, you can quickly estimate the flooring cost and calculate how much hardwood, vinyl, or laminate flooring you need to install. With our help, any construction project is going to be a breeze!

Already done with the flooring? Check out our wallpaper calculator, too!

## How much flooring do I need?

Before you drive to the nearest Home Depot to buy your flooring, you have to estimate how much material you actually need. You can do it in the following way:

1. Measure the room that you're going to install the floor in. We recommend measuring the length and width and rounding them up to the nearest inch. Be sure to always consider the widest point of the room, even if the walls are not perfectly straight.

2. Multiply the width by the length of the room to obtain the square footage. If your room is not rectangular but has a more irregular shape, you could try determining its area with our area of a trapezoid calculator.

3. Once you know the area of the room, you're good to go - this is the square footage of flooring materials you have to buy. If you want to cover the floor with square elements, the GCF calculator can be helpful if you are interested in knowing what the biggest possible size of a single tile is.

4. If you're willing to put a bit more effort into the calculations, consider how much additional material to buy to account for waste during installation (for example, to ensure that the patterns match on all pieces of flooring). We recommend adding 5-10% of the total area for that purpose.

## How to estimate the flooring cost?

Once you know how much material you need, it's time to grab your wallet and drive to that Home Depot. Before you do it, though, you can spend a few more seconds to predict how much you're going to pay for the flooring.

All you need to do is determine the price per one square foot of your chosen material, be it hardwood, vinyl, or laminate flooring. For example, your material of choice might be sold at $3\ \mathrm{m^2}$.

Once you know this price, multiply it by the square footage of the material you need to buy to find out how much it will cost. If the price is too high for your liking, consider other options - for example, installing tiles or choosing a cheaper finish that you'll cover with a carpet.

Naturally, this price doesn't consider additional materials such as thresholds or special edging. If the type of flooring you chose is difficult to install, you might also have to include the cost of equipment (such as sanders or floor rollers) or even hire a contractor to help you.

## Using this square foot calculator for flooring

Are you still not sure how to use this flooring calculator? Let's consider an example calculation for laminated flooring. We want to install a new floor in your dining room.

1. Measure the length and width of the room. Let's assume that its dimensions are 16' x 13'.

2. Input these values into our flooring calculator. It will automatically determine the room area. In this case, it's equal to 208 square feet.

3. If you want to consider the waste of the flooring material, open the advanced mode and enter a waste factor. We'll take a factor of 5% to account for the trimming.

4. The flooring calculator will automatically add more material to the amount calculated in step 2. Instead of buying $208$ square feet of the material, you will now need $218.4$ square feet.

5. Find out the cost of laminate flooring per square foot. Let's choose scratch-resistant laminate at $\text{\textdollar}2.59$ per square foot.

6. Finally, estimate the flooring cost by multiplying this value by the amount of required material. Our calculator does it independently, showing you the total price of $\text{\textdollar}565.66$.

## Hardwood, vinyl, and laminate flooring

Choosing the type of floor finish is a difficult decision. The multitude of available options is enough to make your head spin. Luckily, we prepared a short description of the most popular types to highlight their advantages and any potential problems you might encounter.

Hardwood flooring is the most luxurious floor type. It's exceptionally durable and lavish-looking but also the most expensive of all flooring types. If you choose solid hardwood panels, you will probably need some help with the installation. Otherwise, settle for cheaper varieties that are also easier to handle, such as bamboo or cork flooring.

Vinyl flooring is typically sold in sheets or rolls, which gives you extreme ease of installation. It's also much lighter than other types of flooring. You can get it much cheaper than hardwood flooring and apply it in every area of your house, including wet areas such as kitchens or bathrooms.

Laminated flooring is extremely popular because it's both aesthetic and affordable. While it looks exactly like wood, tiles, or stone flooring, it's much cheaper and easier to maintain. It also has the advantage of simple installation (usually using click locks). You can find a wide range of scratch- and water-resistant laminates at virtually every store with construction materials.

Or how about going for epoxy resin flooring that's slip and shock-resistant? If you decide to go for it, check out our epoxy calculator to estimate how much epoxy you'll need.

## FAQ

### How do I calculate the floor area?

If you are looking to determine the area of a floor that you’d like to cover:

1. Measure the width and length of the room at its widest point.
2. Multiply these two values to obtain the floor area.
3. Buy this amount of flooring materials.
4. If you’d like to buy additional material to account for waste, purchase an additional 5% - 10% of the total area.

### What is the flooring cost to cover a 48 square foot floor?

To estimate the flooring cost to cover a 48-square-foot floor, you need to know the flooring cost per square foot. The vinyl flooring cost ranges from $1 to$4 per square foot, laminate flooring is $2 to$6 per square foot, and hardwood flooring costs $3 to$7. With these approximate values, the average cost to cover 48 square feet is:

• Vinyl flooring - $120; • Laminate flooring -$192; and
• Hardwood flooring - $240. ### How do I calculate square feet for flooring? To calculate the square feet for flooring, you’ll need to take some measurements. To simplify the process, consider that the room is rectangular, even if it's not, and take the following measurements at the widest points: 1. Measure the width of the room in feet. 2. Similarly, measure the room’s length in feet. 3. Multiply these two dimensions to obtain the total square foot flooring: square foot flooring = width × length  4. That’s it! ### How much waste do you calculate for flooring? A 5% - 10% extra is recommended to account for flooring waste. This means that you’ll need to increase your original floor area by 5% to 10%. Always round up to the nearest whole value. Let's imagine we'll like to cover a floor of 10’ × 15’: 1. The square footage for these dimensions is: 150 ft² 2. We’ll consider an extra 5% for waste: 150 ft² x 5% = 157,5 ft² 3. After rounding up: 158 ft² Bogna Szyk Room length ft in Room width ft in Cost of material$/
ft²
Flooring cost
Room area
ft²
Total cost
\$
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