Laminate Calculator

Laminate is sold in packs of 1.8 or 2.5 m² depending on the board size, so the area figure has to be rounded up after the waste allowance, not before. A 20 m² room with 5 % waste needs 21 m², which is twelve packs of 1.8 m² or nine of 2.5 m²; ordering ten of the small pack leaves you a metre short on the last row.

Board size also drives the cutting waste. Long boards in a large room waste little; short boards in a narrow room waste a lot because every row ends with a cut that cannot be reused.

Laminate moves with humidity, so it needs a 10 mm gap at every wall, covered by skirting. The gap is not optional and it is not the fitter being careful: without it the floor lifts in the middle of the room in August.

Underlay goes under the whole area and never doubles as a vapour barrier unless it is specified as one. At the doorway the floor is cut and covered by a profile, and that profile plus the door undercut is the detail people forget until the floor is down and the door no longer closes.

Packs should sit in the room for 48 hours before laying so the boards reach the room's humidity. Opened too early in a cold flat, they shrink after installation and the joints open.

Lay in the longest direction of the room and in one continuous run across rooms where possible. Two separate runs meeting at a doorway need a profile and will never look like one floor.