Rooms larger than 12’
in length and width require more than 1 continuous piece of
12’ carpet or vinyl to cover the floor. Because both carpet
and vinyl must always be laid with pieces running in the same
direction, the calculation is more involved than a simple square
footage formula.
Here is a step-by-step formula you may use to calculate the
minimum number of lineal feet of 12’ floor covering required
to cover a given area:
1.
Make sure your dimensional
measurements are accurate. Then, draw a diagram of the
room.
2.
Determine the direction
the floor covering should run. Indicate this on you drawing.
3.
Determine your first “run”:
the full 12’ width of floor covering that goes down
first. Draw this in on your diagram. Note its length,
i.e.: 12’ x 16’.
4.
Determine the dimensional
measurement of your “fill”: that area of the
floor left to be covered by floor covering. You should
note this as a given width by given length, i.e.: fill
= 3’ x 16’.
5.
If the width of your fill
is 1’, 2’, 3’, 4’ or 6’,
use it as is. If it is some other dimension less than
6’, round it up to the next larger of the numbers
list above. Take the number you now have and divide it
into 12’. The result is the number of pieces it
will be possible to cut from a 12’ width and use
to cover the width of the fill area.
6.
Take the answer to the preceding equation,
and divide it into the length of the fill. The answer
to this equation will be the number of lineal feet of
12’ floor covering required to cover the fill. To
determine total amount of carpet needed for room, add
this amount to length of first run.
Example:
Room =
First run =
Fill =
15’ x 16’
12’ x 16’
3’ x 16’
3’ divided into 12’ = 4’
4’ divided into 16’ = 4’ (this is your
answer)
4 lineal feet of 12’ floor covering
will cover a 3’ x 16’ fill. For a room that
is
15’ x 16’, you will need a piece of carpet
that is 12’ x 20’.
REMINDER:
This method gives you the minimum amount of flooring but will
also create many extra seams. By ordering more carpet you can
reduce the number of seams and improve the quality of the finished
project.
For example in the figure above we ordered 20 linear feet
and created 4 seams – 1 running the length of the carpet
(this seam is unavoidable) and 3 perpendicular to that. By
simply ordering 4 more linear feet (total of 24 linear feet)
of carpet you can reduce the number of seams to 2 or for the
highest quality installation you can order 8 more linear feet
(total of 32 linear feet) which would reduce the number of
seams to the minimum of 1
Conversion
Formulas (please note exceptions on previous page):
Linear Foot (LF) Price x .75 = Square Yards Price
Square Yards Price x 1.333 = Linear Foot Price
Linear
Foot of Carpet:
When we cut a one foot strip from a 12 ft. roll of carpet,
we have one linear foot of carpet. This 1 ft. x 12 ft. strip
of carpet is 12 square feet or 1 1/3 square. yards.
