Nails & Numbers

Home › Flooring › Flooring Calculator

Flooring Calculator

Quantities from manufacturer layout rules, prices quoted and dated

The most-linked flooring cost table on the internet prices 100 square feet at $509 to $2,214 for materials, and $150 to $2,900 for materials and installation. Installing the floor makes it cheaper. That is on every one of its ten rows.

Flooring takeoff

ft
ft
in
in

Quantities use the layout minimums from the Pergo Rigid Click instructions, which cover vinyl plank. Tile and stone are laid to a grid with a grout joint and belong on the tile calculator. The money is This Old House's published range, attributed below.

Specification summary

Generated from on . Reopen that address to reproduce these figures exactly.

Entered

Result

This figure is drawn from the room you type in above.
Published ranges for your floor, on one axis

Flooring prices, and why the two columns cross over

Per sq ft, by material
ItemLowHighUnit
Natural stone (marble)$3$20per sq ft
Ceramic tile$11$39per sq ft
Solid hardwood$3$10per sq ft
Vinyl$7$22per sq ft
Laminate$4$20per sq ft
Floor removal$1$6per sq ft, adder
Underlayment$3.40$5per sq ft, adder

Source: This Old House, flooring cost. Last price check: September 9, 2026.

Use this table, not the size table on the same page. That one prices 100 sq ft at 509 to 2,214 for materials only and 150 to 2,900 for materials AND installation, so its installed low is below its materials low, on every one of its ten rows. The material rows here are also not all on one basis: solid hardwood at 3 to 10 is the materials-only figure from this publisher's own hardwood page, whose installed figure is 6 to 18.

Cork flooring prices

As each row states
ItemLowHighUnit
Cork floor, 10 x 10 ft room$1,270$4,600total
Installed$5$19per sq ft
Materials$3$10.50per sq ft
Labor$2$4per sq ft
Natural cork$3$8.50per sq ft
Printed cork$8$10.50per sq ft
Cork planks$4$9per sq ft
Glue-down cork tiles$3$7per sq ft
Subfloor leveling, 10 x 10 ft$300$500total

Source: HomeAdvisor, how much does cork flooring cost. Last price check: September 15, 2026.

$1,270 to $4,600 for a 100 sq ft room is $12.70 to $46 per sq ft, well above the source's own $5 to $19 installed rate.

Terrazzo floor prices

As each row states
ItemLowHighUnit
Terrazzo floor, typical project$4,000$7,000total
Installed$9$35per sq ft
Terrazzo tile, material$4$12per sq ft
Poured terrazzo, material$5$15per sq ft
Labor, tile$5$5per sq ft
Labor, poured$20$20per sq ft

Source: HomeAdvisor, how much does terrazzo flooring cost. Last price check: September 15, 2026.

Poured material at $5 to $15 plus the source's $20 labor comes to $25 to $35 per sq ft, the top of its installed range.

Asbestos removal prices

As each row states
ItemLowHighUnit
Asbestos removal, typical project$1,215$3,282total
Interior removal$5$20per sq ft
Flooring and floor tile$5$15per sq ft
Popcorn ceilings$9$20per sq ft
Pipe insulation$5$15per sq ft
Walls and drywall$8$13.50per sq ft
Attic insulation$11$25per sq ft
HVAC ducts$35$55per sq ft
Roof$50$120per sq ft
Testing$250$850total
Disposal permit$50$100total

Source: HomeAdvisor, how much does asbestos removal cost. Last price check: September 15, 2026.

The source's 400 and 500 sq ft interior rows carry the same $5,200 to $7,800.

Radiant floor heating prices

As each row states
ItemLowHighUnit
Radiant floor heating, typical project$1,653$6,656total
Installed$6$20per sq ft
In a concrete floor, average$22.50$22.50per sq ft
Under bathroom tile, average$30$30per sq ft
Installer$550$2,500total
Hydronic system, whole house$19,000$48,000total
Electric system, whole house$19,000$36,000total
Geothermal system$9,500$27,000total
Solar system$8,000$19,500total
Propane system$2,400$2,900total

Source: HomeAdvisor, how much does radiant floor heating cost. Last price check: September 15, 2026.

The source's $6 to $20 per sq ft sits below both of its own flooring examples, $22.50 in concrete and $30 under bathroom tile.

Rubber flooring prices

As each row states
ItemLowHighUnit
Rubber flooring, typical project$800$2,300total
Rubber tiles$3$8per sq ft, material
Poured-in-place rubber$9$16per sq ft, material
Rolled rubber mat$1$5per sq ft, material
Rubberized wood$1$5per sq ft, material
Installation$1$4per sq ft

Source: HomeAdvisor, how much does rubber flooring cost. Last price check: September 15, 2026.

Material and installation are separate in the source; its $1 to $4 installation rate is added to any material row.

Worked example

A 16 ft by 12 ft room in 7 in by 48 in vinyl plank.

  1. 192 square feet of floor. The 8 mm expansion gap comes off each side, leaving 143.4 in of usable width and 191.4 in of length.
  2. 21 rows, and the last one is 3.37 in. The Rigid Click document sets no minimum width for that last row, unlike the laminate and hardwood guides, so nothing forces a rip at the first row here.
  3. The offcut is 0.63 in. Four planks cover 192 in of a 191.4 in run. This document publishes no minimum length for a starting piece either, so on its own rules that sliver passes; this page counts it as scrap and says which rule it borrowed to do so.
  4. Cut waste comes out at 2.9%, nearly all of it the rip at one edge. No allowance is published in this document to compare it against.
  5. Then the money, and this is where it gets awkward. The same 192 sq ft priced as vinyl is $1,344 to $4,224. Priced as ceramic tile it is $2,112 to $7,488. Priced as natural stone it is $576 to $3,840, which puts marble below vinyl at the bottom of its range.
  6. Read the figure rather than the table. Drawn on one axis, four of the five materials overlap across most of their length. The table presents them as a ranking; the axis shows they are mostly the same bet.

The quantity is exact and it is ours. The money is a range somebody else published, and the useful thing this page does with it is show how far the ranges overlap, which a column of text cannot.

The formula

There is no cost formula, because there is no honest cost constant. There is a quantity formula and a scaling:

cost = published rate × area,   order = area × (1 + cut waste)
published rate
a named publisher's per-square-foot range, with a date, not this site's number
area
length times width, the floor, before any waste
cut waste
computed from the rows, the rips and the offcuts, not a flat percentage

Note that the two lines use different areas on purpose. The published rate is an installed-floor rate and already contains whatever waste the estimator assumed, so multiplying it by the padded order quantity would count the waste twice. The order quantity is for the yard; the rate is for the floor.

The size table on the source page contradicts itself, and here is the arithmetic

Start with the two columns. This Old House's flooring cost guide prints a table of room sizes with a materials-only range and a materials-and-installation range. At 100 sq ft those read $509 to $2,214 and $150 to $2,900. The installed low is $359 below the materials low, and the same gap holds on all ten rows up to 1,000 sq ft.

The two columns were generated by different models. The installed column is a flat multiply: exactly $1.50 and $29.00 per square foot, with no fixed cost at all, which is why 1,000 sq ft comes out at precisely $1,500 and $29,000. The materials column is not. Its steps are $401 and about $1,990 per 100 sq ft with an intercept, so it behaves like a job with a call-out fee. Neither model is unreasonable; they were just never checked against each other.

The material table on the same page mixes bases too. Solid hardwood is listed at $3 to $10 per square foot. That is exactly the materials-only figure from this publisher's own hardwood page, whose installed figure is $6 to $18. Sitting beside it, vinyl at $7 to $22 and laminate at $4 to $20 read as installed numbers, and the laminate page from the same publisher gives $5 to $12 installed. Three answers, one material, one site.

So this page uses the material table and ignores the size table, and shows you why. The figure above draws each material's published range as a bar on one shared axis. Four of the five overlap heavily, which is the honest summary of what these numbers can tell you: they separate ceramic tile from everything else, and they do not reliably separate the rest.

What the quantity part actually computes

Area divided by coverage plus ten percent is not a calculation, it is a shrug. What decides how much plank flooring you buy is three published minimums and where your room lands against them.

The rows across the width. The usable width, after the expansion gap comes off both sides, divided by the plank face width. The remainder is the last row. Two of the three manufacturer documents used on this site set a minimum for it, 1 in and 5 cm respectively, and both instruct you to rip the FIRST row as well when the remainder falls short, splitting it between the two edges. That is the case where a room that divides almost exactly into whole planks costs you the most.

The offcut along the length. The piece left at the end of each run. It is meant to start the next row, which is where a flat waste percentage silently assumes its savings, and whether it may depends on the minimum end-joint stagger. A row started with a short piece staggers by the plank length minus that piece, so a long offcut fails the stagger and a very short one is not a board.

The expansion gap. A constant in two of the documents and a formula in the third. Pergo's laminate guide publishes it as 1 mm per meter of floor width with an 8 mm minimum, so it is invisible under about 26 ft wide and real above it.

The hardwood and laminate pages carry the quotes and the document numbers for each of those.

Tile, stone and carpet are not this calculation

The row and offcut arithmetic describes a plank or board laid in courses. Three common floors are not that, and using a plank calculator on them gives a confidently wrong answer.

Tile and stone are laid to a grid with a grout joint, and the joint is not a rounding error: on a 1 in mosaic it is roughly ten times the share of the surface it takes on a 12 in tile. The tile calculator reproduces the manufacturer's own coverage chart from a single constant and handles the joint properly.

Carpet comes off a roll of fixed width, so the waste is decided by seam placement rather than by any percentage, and the carpet calculator works to the CRI 105 rules on where a seam may go.

Pick tile or stone in the selector above and the page will price them for you, because the source publishes those rows, but it warns you that the quantity half does not apply.

What a flooring quote should be compared on

Not the total. The total is the one number both parties can defend and neither can check.

The area they measured. If their square footage and yours disagree, everything downstream is noise. Ask whether the figure includes closets, the hearth, and the bay.

Removal of the old floor, as its own line. The source used here prices it at $1 to $6 per square foot, a six-fold range, and it moves with the number of existing layers and local disposal fees.

Underlayment and subfloor prep. Priced separately at $3.40 to $5 per square foot in the same source. Every floating floor needs an underlay, and a subfloor outside the flatness tolerance needs levelling compound before anything is laid on it. Pergo's tolerance is 4 mm over 2 m and 1 mm over 20 cm, which is tighter than most old floors.

Transitions. One per doorway on most floating installations, and mandatory once the connected surface exceeds the published maximum size. A quote for one continuous floor and a quote with four transitions are different jobs.

Frequently asked questions

How do I calculate how much flooring I need?
Take the room area, then add the cut waste your room actually produces rather than a flat percentage. That waste comes from the rows across the width, the rip at each edge, and the offcut at the end of each run. For a 16 by 12 room in 7 in plank it is 2.9%, so 192 square feet of floor needs about 198 ordered.
How much waste should I add for flooring?
Only one of the three manufacturer documents used on this site publishes a figure at all: Bruce says 5% for a straight lay and 10% for diagonal, and the same paragraph explains the 5% is largely the permitted grading defect rate rather than a cutting allowance. Pergo publishes none for laminate or vinyl. The ten percent everybody quotes has no source behind it.
Why do flooring cost guides disagree with each other?
Often they disagree with themselves. The guide used here prices 100 sq ft at $509 to $2,214 for materials and $150 to $2,900 for materials and installation, so the installed low sits below the materials low on every row of the table. The two columns come from different models, one with a fixed cost and one without, and they were not checked against each other.
What is the cheapest flooring per square foot?
On the table used here, natural stone at $3 to $20 has the lowest bottom end and ceramic tile at $11 to $39 the highest, which is not the ranking most people expect. Read the figure rather than the table: drawn on one axis, four of the five materials overlap across most of their range, so the numbers separate tile from the rest and do not reliably separate the rest from each other. The most cost effective floor for a given room is decided by the quote and the quantity together, not by the category.
Does the published price include removing the old floor?
Not usually, and this source prices removal separately at $1 to $6 per square foot. It also prices underlayment at $3.40 to $5. Both are real lines on a real quote and neither is inside the per-square-foot material figures.
Is vinyl plank cheaper than laminate?
The general guide used here says vinyl is $7 to $22 and laminate $4 to $20, so laminate is cheaper at both ends. The same publisher's dedicated laminate page says $5 to $12 installed, which does not match either. The specific page is the one to trust, and this is a good illustration of why a single number from a cost guide should not decide a material.
Why does this page not give me one price?
Because it would be invented. Every dollar figure here belongs to a named publisher with a publication date, and the page shows the arithmetic that scales it onto your room. What this site contributes is the quantity, and that part is exact.
What does wood flooring cost per square foot installed?
This Old House's hardwood page gives solid hardwood at $3 to $10 per square foot for materials and $6 to $18 installed. On the 16 by 12 example room, 192 sq ft, that is $576 to $1,920 for the wood alone or $1,152 to $3,456 installed, which is the wood plus the labor of laying it. The hardwood flooring calculator carries the layout rules for solid wood specifically.
What does asbestos floor tile abatement cost?
HomeAdvisor's asbestos removal guide prices flooring and floor tile at $5 to $15 per square foot, with testing at $250 to $850 and a disposal permit at $50 to $100. On the 16 by 12 example room, 192 sq ft, the removal is $960 to $2,880 before testing. It is priced separately from the ordinary $1 to $6 floor removal row.
What does rubber gym flooring cost?
HomeAdvisor's rubber flooring guide prices material and installation separately: rubber tiles at $3 to $8 per square foot, rolled rubber mat at $1 to $5 and poured-in-place rubber at $9 to $16, plus $1 to $4 to install. A 192 sq ft home gym in rubber tiles is $768 to $2,304 installed. Rubber goes down as tiles, rolls or a pour rather than in plank rows, so the row and offcut arithmetic on this page does not apply to it.
Is resin flooring the same as epoxy?
Epoxy is one kind of resin floor: two parts are mixed and cure into a hard coating over concrete. It is sized by coverage per gallon rather than by plank rows, which the epoxy floor calculator works out from the product's data sheet. None of the price guides on this page has a resin row.
How much does terrazzo flooring cost?
HomeAdvisor's June 2026 guide gives $9 to $35 per square foot installed and $4,000 to $7,000 for a typical project, with terrazzo tile at $4 to $12 and poured terrazzo at $5 to $15 per square foot for material.
How much does it cost to remove asbestos floor tiles or siding?
HomeAdvisor's June 2026 guide gives $5 to $15 per square foot to remove asbestos flooring and floor tile, $5 to $20 for interior removal generally and $250 to $850 for testing. It does not price asbestos siding separately.
How much does engineered or parquet flooring cost?
This Old House's June 2026 article gives $6 to $23 per square foot for engineered wood flooring, $13 to $40 for true parquet and $10 to $16 for parquet-style tiles, with labor at $3 to $8 per square foot.
How much does it cost to sand, refinish or stain wood floors?
HomeAdvisor's June 2026 guide gives $3 to $8 per square foot to sand and refinish, $200 to $800 for a 10 by 10 ft room and $1,000 to $2,500 for a 20 by 20 ft room. Staining is part of refinishing in the guide, not a separate line.
How much does vinyl sheet flooring cost per square foot?
HomeAdvisor's June 2026 guide gives $1 to $2 per square foot for sheet vinyl, $3 to $10 for luxury vinyl plank, and $3 to $10 per square foot to lay it.

Check these numbers yourself

How every figure here is verified: Sources & Method. Who builds this: , and the method is on About. Found something wrong? Tell us and it gets fixed or removed.

Figures on this page last checked against the source documents on 2026-09-09. Codes are amended locally; confirm against the edition your jurisdiction enforces.

Related calculators

Guides that use this calculator

More of them: all guides.

No figure of money on this page is this site's own. The ranges belong to This Old House, are reproduced with their byline and date, and are scaled by area with the arithmetic shown. The page also documents where that source contradicts itself, with the arithmetic, so you can check it rather than take it. The quantity half assumes a rectangular room, one plank material, and no islands, hearths or closets, and it does not apply to tile, stone or carpet.