Laminate flooring calculator - packs, skirting and underlay

Packs = total room area × (1 + waste) / m² per pack, rounded up.

Example: a 4 × 3.5 m living room (14 m²) and a 3.2 × 3 m bedroom (9.6 m²) give 23.6 m². With straight lay (5%) you need 24.78 m². With 2.131 m² packs: 24.78 / 2.131 = 11.63 → 12 packs (25.57 m²).

With straight lay the offcut from the end of one row usually starts the next, so little is wasted. Diagonal rows end with angled cuts on both sides.

Skirting = room perimeter − door widths. In the example the perimeters are 15 m and 12.4 m; minus two 0.9 m doors that is 25.6 m. Add 10% for corner cuts (28.2 m) and you need 12 boards of 2.5 m.

Underlay covers the whole floor, butted edge to edge. Allow the floor area + 5%: 23.6 × 1.05 = 24.78 m², i.e. three 10 m² packs. On concrete subfloors add a damp-proof membrane unless the underlay has one built in.

• Buy from one batch. Colour can differ slightly between production runs, so buy all packs at once and check the batch number on the labels. Many people keep one spare pack for future repairs.
• Let the planks acclimatise. Most manufacturers recommend leaving unopened packs in the room for about 48 hours before laying - check the instructions for your product.
• Leave an expansion gap. Floating floors need a gap of typically 8-10 mm at every wall, pipe and door frame; the skirting board covers it. This does not change the amount of flooring you buy.
• Check the pack label, not the plank count. Pack coverage (e.g. 2.131 m² = 8 planks of 1380 × 193 mm) is what the calculator needs.
• Square feet: if the label gives sq ft per box, divide by 10.764 to get m² (e.g. 22.9 sq ft ≈ 2.13 m²).

For the area of irregular rooms, use the square metre calculator; for bathrooms and kitchens, the tile calculator.