Square Footage Calculator | How to Calculate Square Footage

Step 1: Measure the Room

Whether you’re working with an installer or DIYing this project, it’s always a good idea to double-check room measurements. You don’t want to be put in a situation where you’re installing flooring and end up falling short by a few planks. Let’s start off simple by figuring out how to measure the space you’re working with. There are only a few simple steps you need to follow:

1. Clear any objects that would prohibit you from getting an accurate measurement of the length and width of the space.
2. Grab your handy-dandy tape measure - or, if you’re fancy, your digital laser tape measurer - and locate the longest side of the space, this will be the length of the space.
3. Start from one end and extend the tape measure to the other end of the room. This might require the help of another person - or you can use tape to secure one end of the tape measure to the wall. Of course, if you have a laser measurer you won’t have to worry about this.
4. Record the measurement in feet with a pen and paper (or on your phone because who writes things down anymore?).
5. Repeat the steps above for the width of the space.

How to Measure Irregular Shaped Rooms

Now if the area you’re measuring is not a perfect square or rectangle, you can divide it into sections to make it more easily measurable - like in the floor plan to the right. Just measure and record each section individually. This same method applies if you’re doing multiple rooms.

Area 1 Length x Area 1 Width = Square Footage of Area 1
Area 2 Length x Area 2 Width = Square Footage of Area 2
Square Footage of Area 1 + Square Footage of Area 2 = Total Square Footage of the Irregular Room

Step 2: Calculate Square Footage

Converting Inches to Feet

To calculate square footage, all of your measurements need to be in feet. If you recorded the length and width in inches, you can easily convert them to feet. Just remember that one-foot equals 12 inches. So, for example, if the length of your room is 114 inches, you can divide that number by 12 to get 9.5 feet.

Once you’ve got your length and width in feet, it’s time to calculate the square footage. All you need to do is grab a calculator and multiply the length by the width just like in the formula below (pro-tip: the variables in the formula are interchangeable, so if you want to get a little wild and live life on the edge you can multiply the width by the length - it’s crazy stuff, I know).

If you have an irregular shaped room that you separated into sections, you should calculate the square footage for each separate section using the formula. Then, you would add the total of each section to get your final total for the entire room. Using the room diagram above, an example of this is below:

Don’t you just feel so accomplished after finding that number? Math isn’t so bad after all, I guess (especially when you can just press some buttons on a calculator to get the answer).

Step 3: Account for Waste

There’s only more step you need to follow that is crucial to every flooring project: determining how much extra you’ll need for cutting and waste. In a perfect world, you or your installer would make zero mistakes when it comes to installing floor, but realistically speaking, it could happen and most likely will happen. That’s why it’s important to include 10% extra into the final amount of square footage. I promise, it’s easier than it sounds.

All you have to do is take the final number from the previous step and multiply it by .10. This will give you the amount you need to add on to the area square footage which will result in your final total of square footage to order for your project. For this part, we can use the total square footage we got from adding up all three sections in the example above.

1. Take the total square footage of your space and multiply it by .10

   Formula:

   Total square footage x .10 = amount you need to add
   Example:

   2017.35 square feet x .10 = 201.7 square feet

2. Take the number you get from the step above and add it to the total square footage of the space you’re working with. This will give you the final total of flooring to purchase.

   Formula:

   10% extra + square footage of space = Total to purchase
   Example:

   201.7 square feet + 2017.35 feet = 2,219.05 square feet

So, in this example, you would need to order 2,219.05 sq ft of flooring, which includes the square footage of the space and enough to comfortably cover cutting and waste.