How To Measure Your Floor
Even after you have decided that you want to fit your room with LVT, and have decided on where to buy it from and which colour/shade you prefer, before you make an order, you will still need one vital piece of information – what is the size of the room you are fitting LVT with.
Without knowing the size of the room, you won’t know how many packs of LVT planks to buy, and whether this total cost is within your budget.
And if you have a perfectly square or rectangular room, it may seem obvious – just multiply the width of the room by its length and order enough LVT packs to fit this area.
However, there are a few other factors that you need to consider, including the potential you make mistakes when cutting the LVT planks, extra pieces to ensure the LVT reaches the room’s edges and extra pieces to ensure the LVT planks can be laid in your preferred design.
So, In order to make sure you measure your room correctly and order enough LVT, continue reading and hopefully things will be much clearer by the end of this guide.
Step 1 - Measuring your room
Perfectly square or rectangular room
If you have a perfectly square or rectangular room, like in the example above, you simply need to multiple the length (in metres) by the width (in metres) to get the total area of the room (in square metres).
Following the example above, the area would be 6m x 4m = 24m*.
L shaped room
Measuring an L-shaped room is a little more tricky. The easiest way to measure the total area of the room is to split the room into multiple rectangles/squares.
In the example above, we have done this using the dotted red line. This creates one rectangle which is 6m by 2m and one square of 2m by 2m. Total area would be the area of the rectangle (6m x 2m = 12m*) and the area of the square (2m x 2m = 4m*) the total of which is 16m*.
Complex room shape
As with the L-shaped room example, the easiest way to measure the total area of this even more uneven room shape is to split the room into multiple rectangles/squares.
n the example above, we have done this using mutiple dotted red lines. This creates two rectangles and one square of 6m by 2m, 3m by 3m and 1.5m by 1m. Total area would be the area of the first rectangle (6m x 2m = 12m*), the area of the second rectangle (1.5m x 1m = 1.5m*) and the area of the square (3m x 3m = 9m*) the total of which is 22.5m*.
Circular room shape
With rooms that have circular sections, you can either try to calculate the area exactly, are approximate it by assuming the circular section is rectangular.
Approximation – we calculate the area of the whole room as a rectangle, ie including the red dotted lines, and use this total area as a rough approximation. In this example, the rectangle is 5m by 3m which gives an area of 15m*.
Exact – we split the room into a rectangle and semi circle. The rectangle is 4m by 3m which gives an area of 12m*. The circle’s total area is (π1*/2) which gives an area of 1.57m*. Total area is therefore 13.57m*.
As demonstrated by the example, the difference between the two calculations is quite small, and as we will cover later on in this guide, we will need to increase our total room area by a certain percentage to account for mistakes and cuts to full size planks to fill in the room’s edges anyway.
Step 2 – Increase the total room area by 10%
Why increase the total area by 10%?
o Some planks will need to be cut to fill in the room’s edges and the unused cuts may be unusable in other parts of the room
o Some planks may be damaged when cutting, so its handy to have some spares on hand
o Although less likely, some planks may be damaged during the fitting process, so its handy to have some spare
o Finally, this gives some comfort that even if you didn’t measure your room to the millimetre, you will still enough LVT planks on hand.
Using our examples above:
1. Our first example has a total area of 24m*. Increasing this by 10% would give a total area of 26.4m*
2. Our second example has a total area of 16m*. Increasing this by 10% would give a total area of 17.6m*
3. Our third example has a total area of 22.5m*. Increasing this by 10% would give a total area of 25m*
4. Our fourth example has a total area of 13.57m* (using exact area). Increasing this by 10% would give a total area of around 15m*.
Step 3 – work out how many LVT packs to order
So, if you have calculated your room area is 24m*, and adding 10%, have an area of 26.4m*, how many LVT packs would you need to buy?
At Citadel Flooring and other UK stores, the total area covered by 1 LVT pack will typically be advertised.
For example, our Citadel Classic Oak SPC Click LVT comes in packs of 10, which cover a total surface area of 2.24m*. If we had calculated the total area of a room was 26.4m* (including the 10%), then we would divide 26.4 by 2.24 which gives 11.78.
You can’t buy part of a pack however, so this would be rounded up to 12 and you would purchase 12 packs of LVT.
If another store had LVT packs each covering 1.87m*, you would divide 26.4m* by 1.87 which gives 14.12, and rounded up, you would need to buy 15 packs of LVT.
What do I do with the waste?
Inevitably, after your room has been fully fitted with LVT, there will be some LVT planks left over. There is no real way around this unfortunately.
The good news is that this provides some insurance against wear and tear in your LVT going forward.
If for whatever reason, your LVT is damaged a few years after it has been laid, due to builders moving furniture too aggressively or a guest dropping something heavy on the floor, the damaged LVT planks can be replaced by your spares, saving you refitting the entire room.