Flooring Calculator
Enter the room and your carton's coverage to get boxes of laminate, engineered, or hardwood flooring — waste allowance built in.
Laminate, engineered, and solid hardwood flooring are all sold by the carton, and each carton lists the area it covers — commonly `16` to `24 sq ft`. Find your room area by multiplying length by width, add a waste allowance for cuts, then divide by the carton coverage to get the number of boxes.
Waste is the number people get wrong. The National Wood Flooring Association suggests at least `5 %` for a simple straight lay, and `10 %` is the safe everyday default because the first and last rows are always ripped narrower and end cuts rarely reuse cleanly. Diagonal and herringbone patterns waste more — plan on `15 %` or higher.
Order all your flooring at once, from the same production run. Dye lots and milling can shift slightly between batches, and a box bought a month later may not match. Because you buy whole cartons, the count rounds up — the extra plank is your attic stash for future repairs.
floor area = 12 × 15 = 180 sq ft
with waste = 180 × 1.10 = 198 sq ft
boxes = 198 ÷ 20 = 9.9 → 10 boxes