Flooring Take-Off Sheet
Measure every room, add the areas, then convert to boxes ONCE at the end — rounding each room separately buys far more than you need.
BFCBrilliance · bfcbrilliance.com/tools/flooring-calculator
The job
- Property
- Date
- Product
- Coverage per box
- Waste % used
- TOTAL AREA
- Area + waste
- BOXES
- Underlay needed?
- Dye lot / batch no.
One row per room
| Room | Length | Width | Area | Notes (angles, alcoves) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
The arithmetic
- Area
- length x width
- With waste
- area x (1 + waste %)
- Boxes
- area with waste / box coverage, rounded UP
- Real margin
- (boxes x coverage - floor area) / floor area
- Straight lay, simple room
- 10% waste
- Angles, alcoves, many doors
- 15%
- Diagonal or herringbone
- 20%+
- ⚠ Box coverage
- no standard — read it off YOUR box
Before you order
- All rooms measured and areas ADDED before converting to boxes
- L-shaped rooms split into rectangles - never the bounding box
- Waste allowance matched to the layout, not just defaulted to 10%
- Box coverage read off the actual product
- Leftover figure checked before deciding on a spare box
- One extra box considered for DYE LOT matching, not for waste
- Batch number written down in case you ever need more
- First-row width planned so the last row is not a sliver
- Underlay, beading and threshold strips costed separately
- Boards left in the room to acclimatise for the time the maker specifies
The box size decides what you buy, not the waste allowance
The allowance decides what you shop for; the rounding to whole boxes decides what you take home. Those are often several percent apart, in either direction. Look at the leftover figure before adding a spare box — sometimes the rounding has already given you most of one.
Convert to boxes ONCE, at the end
If you are flooring several rooms, add all the areas together and convert once. Rounding each room up to whole boxes separately can easily buy two or three boxes more than the job needs, because you pay the rounding penalty every time instead of once.