How to Measure for Laminate Flooring: Packs, Gaps and Waste

Quick answer: Measure the room’s length and width in metres, multiply to get the floor area, then add 10% for cutting waste and divide by the coverage printed on each pack, rounding up. A 4.2 × 3.4 m room is 14.28 m²; with 10% extra that is 15.71 m², or 8 packs of 1.99 m².

Unlike carpet, laminate is sold by the pack and laid board by board, so you buy close to the real floor area plus a waste allowance. The measuring is simple; the planning around expansion gaps, the last row and doorways is where most DIY jobs go wrong. More room-by-room advice is in the home measuring guides.

The pack calculation for a 4.2 × 3.4 m room with 10% extra and an example pack size of 1.99 m².

Table of Contents

How much laminate flooring do I need?

Floor area × 1.1, divided by the pack coverage, rounded up to a whole pack. The 1.1 adds the 10% surplus that EGGER, one of the major laminate manufacturers, recommends for a standard installation. It covers offcuts at the end of each row, cuts around door frames and the occasional damaged board.

Allow more, up to 15%, if you have not fitted laminate before or the room has lots of corners, pipes and angles. Pack coverage differs between products and board sizes, so always use the figure printed on the box rather than a rule of thumb.

Laminate pack calculator

m× m + % waste, m² per pack=8 packs (15.92 m²)

Laminate quantity chart for common room sizes

A 3 m × 3 m room needs about 9.9 m² of laminate once 10% is added, which is 5 packs of 1.99 m². The chart uses that example pack size; substitute your own product's coverage for an exact count.

Room size	Floor area	With 10% extra	Packs of 1.99 m²
2.0 m × 1.8 m	3.60 m²	3.96 m²	2 (3.98 m²)
3.0 m × 3.0 m	9.00 m²	9.90 m²	5 (9.95 m²)
3.6 m × 3.0 m	10.80 m²	11.88 m²	6 (11.94 m²)
4.2 m × 3.4 m	14.28 m²	15.71 m²	8 (15.92 m²)
4.5 m × 3.6 m	16.20 m²	17.82 m²	9 (17.91 m²)
5.0 m × 4.0 m	20.00 m²	22.00 m²	12 (23.88 m²)
6.0 m × 4.5 m	27.00 m²	29.70 m²	15 (29.85 m²)

Notice how rounding up can add a lot in some rooms: 22.00 m² needs 11.06 packs, so you pay for a twelfth almost entirely as spare. If the total is only just over a whole pack, it is worth re-measuring carefully before ordering. Leftover unopened packs can often be returned, but check the retailer's policy first.

If your room dimensions are in feet, multiply length by width to get square feet and then multiply by 0.0929 to get square metres; a 14 × 11 ft room is 154 sq ft, or about 14.31 m². The site's area converter handles the conversion for you.

What do you need to measure for laminate?

A tape measure (5 m or 8 m) or laser measure
Squared paper for a plan, ideally roughly to scale
The board's face width and the pack coverage from the product details
A calculator, or the pack calculator above

How do you measure a room for laminate flooring?

Measure wall to wall at floor level. Take the length and width in metres, measuring past the skirting to the wall if the skirting is coming off, or to the skirting face if it is staying.
Split awkward shapes into rectangles. Work out L-shapes, bays and recesses as separate rectangles and add them; the guide to measuring a room in square metres shows how.
Include door openings. Add the floor within each doorway up to where the threshold profile will sit.
Do not deduct small obstacles. Leave pipes, radiator legs and kitchen island footprints in the area if you are unsure; it simply adds to the margin.
Add the waste allowance and divide by pack coverage. Round up to a whole pack, and if the job spans several rooms, add up the areas first and apply the percentage once.

Measuring to millimetre accuracy is not necessary for ordering; the nearest centimetre is fine. Precise readings matter later, when you are cutting the last row and fitting round frames. The guide to reading a tape measure covers the fine millimetre markings.

How wide will the last row of laminate be?

Subtract the two expansion gaps from the room width, divide by the board's face width, and the remainder tells you the last row. Doing this before you start stops you ending up with a sliver of board against the far wall, which looks poor and is hard to fix in place.

With an example 192 mm board, a 3.40 m wide room takes 17 full rows and a last row of about 116 mm, comfortably wider than the 50 mm minimum many manufacturers give.

Worked through: 3.40 m − (2 × 10 mm) = 3.38 m, or 3,380 mm. Dividing by 192 mm gives 17.6, so 17 full rows use 3,264 mm and leave 116 mm for the last row. Quick-Step's instructions say to avoid a last row narrower than 50 mm; if your sum gives less than that, trim the first row as well so the two edge rows are similar widths.

How big should the expansion gap be?

Most laminate needs an 8 to 10 mm gap at every wall, pipe, door frame and fixed object. Laminate is a floating floor: it expands and contracts with humidity, and without a gap it can lift or buckle. Quick-Step's installation instructions give 8 to 10 mm, and some retailers suggest matching the gap to the board thickness. The skirting board or a scotia bead covers the gap afterwards.

Large rooms: Quick-Step specifies an extra, intermediate expansion gap where a floor is more than 13 m long or wide.
Doorways: the floor should break at the door with a threshold profile, rather than run continuously from room to room.
Pipes: drill holes about 20 mm larger than the pipe (10 mm gap each side) and cover them with pipe rings.

What else should you measure before ordering?

Underlay, skirting or scotia, and threshold profiles all come from the same measurements.

Underlay: the floor area, with no roll-width waste (it is butted, not overlapped). Skip it if the boards have underlay already attached, but check whether a separate moisture barrier is still needed on concrete.
Scotia or new skirting: the room perimeter minus door openings. For the 4.2 × 3.4 m room with a 0.8 m door: (4.2 + 3.4) × 2 − 0.8 = 14.4 m. Add a length for mitred corners.
Threshold profiles: the width of each door opening.

If part of the house is getting carpet instead, the method is different because carpet is cut from fixed-width rolls; see how to measure for carpet.

Do laminate boards need to acclimatise?

Yes: Quick-Step advises leaving unopened packs in the room for 48 hours before fitting. Its instructions give ideal conditions of 15 to 22°C and 30 to 75% relative humidity. Lay the packs flat in the middle of the room, not against a radiator or an outside wall.

Common mistakes to avoid

Ordering exactly the floor area. Without a margin you will run out on the last few rows, and a later batch may differ slightly in shade.
Butting boards tight to the wall. Without an expansion gap, a laminate floor can lift or buckle as it expands.
Lining up end joints. Quick-Step specifies at least 30 cm between end joints in neighbouring rows; joints close together weaken the floor and look like a ladder.
Not planning the last row. A strip a couple of centimetres wide is difficult to click in and tends to work loose.
Forgetting the door. Check that doors will still open over the new floor plus underlay; you may need to trim the bottom of the door.

Frequently asked questions

How much extra laminate should I buy?

Buy 10% more than the floor area for a standard room. Go up to 15% if you are new to fitting or the room has many corners and obstacles.

How many packs of laminate do I need for 20 m²?

Add 10% to get 22 m², then divide by the pack coverage. With packs of 1.99 m², 22 ÷ 1.99 = 11.06, so you would buy 12 packs.

Do you measure laminate to the wall or the skirting?

Measure to the wall if the skirting is being removed and refitted over the floor, or to the face of the skirting if it is staying and you will use scotia to cover the gap.

What size expansion gap does laminate need?

Usually 8 to 10 mm around the whole perimeter and every fixed object. Always follow the gap given in the instructions for your product.

Which way should laminate flooring run?

Boards usually look best running along the length of the room or towards the main window. The direction makes little difference to how much you need to buy.

Sources

EGGER: How much laminate flooring do I need? (10% to 15% surplus, pack calculation)
Quick-Step laminate installation instructions (expansion gap, acclimatisation, last row and joint stagger)
Tapi: Laminate flooring expansion gap guide