Tiles & flooringOctober 21, 2026· 4 min read

How Many Boxes of Laminate Flooring Do I Need? A 5 × 3.6 m Room Worked Out

A 5 × 3.6 m room with 1,285 × 192 mm planks: how many planks and packs to buy, why flooring is counted by area rather than layout, and how much extra to add.

Laminate flooring is sold in packs, not by the square metre. The box lists the plank size and the number of planks inside — and from that you need to work out how many packs to load into the car. Click-lock vinyl planks are counted exactly the same way. Let’s go through a 5 × 3.6 m room (about 16 × 12 ft).

The example

Room 5,000 × 3,600 mm, i.e. 18 m².
Plank 1,285 × 192 mm, laid along the longer wall.
8 planks per pack (always read this off your own box).
No joint gap, rows offset by a third of a plank.

Why flooring is counted by area

With tiles, every cut tile is a tile bought. A floating floor is different: the piece you cut off at the end of a row usually starts the next row. Waste comes mainly from the last row and from offcuts too short to use. That is why the calculator has the option row-end offcuts start the next row — it then counts by area, not by the pieces in the layout.

Method	Planks	Packs of 8
By area, no reserve	73	10
By area + 10 %	81	11
By area + 15 %	84	11
Every cut piece from a new plank + 10 %	97	13

The layout has 54 whole and 34 cut planks, 88 in total. If every cut piece came from a fresh plank, you would need 13 packs with the reserve. Reuse the offcuts to start the next row and 11 packs are enough — two whole packs less.

Step by step

1Area of one plank: 1.285 × 0.192 m = 0.2467 m². A pack of 8 covers 1.974 m² (about 21 sq ft).
2Planks by area: 18 m² ÷ 0.2467 m² = 72.96, rounded up to 73 planks.
310 % reserve: 73 × 1.1 = 80.3, so 81 planks.
4Packs: 81 ÷ 8 = 10.1 — you buy whole packs, so 11.

Mind the order: add the reserve to the plank count first and only then divide by the planks per pack. Rounding to packs first (10) and adding 10 % afterwards happens to give 11 here — with another room size you could end up one pack short.

Measuring the room

Measure every wall in at least two places — older walls are rarely parallel. Enter the larger figure.
Count an alcove, a built-in wardrobe without a floor or the space under a radiator separately as another rectangle.
If the floor runs through a doorway into the next room without a transition strip, count both rooms as one area, but handle expansion as the manufacturer’s instructions say.

How much extra to add

In its buying guide, flooring maker Egger recommends adding 10 % for waste and mistakes, and up to 15 % if you are new to laying laminate. It also advises rounding packs up and considering an extra pack if the floor comes from a limited batch. In our example 10 % and 15 % both come to 11 packs, so the larger reserve is free here.

Tiles & flooringOpen this example in the flooring calculator

What to watch when laying

The last row — 3,600 mm is not a multiple of the plank width, so starting at a wall leaves a last row only 144 mm wide. If that bothers you, trim the first and last rows equally.
Expansion gap — laminate moves with temperature and humidity. Egger gives a typical wall gap of 8–10 mm. The floor is therefore slightly smaller than the room; counting the full room size gives you a little extra margin.
Acclimatisation — Egger recommends leaving the packs for 48 hours in the room where they will be laid.
Joint stagger — end joints in neighbouring rows must not line up. The minimum stagger and the shortest allowed piece are in your floor’s installation instructions.

Workshop tips

Open several packs at once and mix the planks, so the pattern spreads evenly across the room.
Keep one unopened pack — you will be glad of it when a damaged plank needs replacing.
With several rooms in the same floor, count each room separately and add up the packs at the end.

The calculator counts material, not the subfloor. Flatness, underlay, vapour barrier and expansion gaps follow the flooring manufacturer’s installation instructions — your warranty depends on them.