Square Footage Calculator

Square footage is length times width. The arithmetic is school-level. The mistake people make is measuring the room edge to edge and forgetting that flooring, paint and tile all need a wastage allowance on top. A 16 ft by 13 ft living room (the preset here) is 208 sq ft on the tape; the order you place at the trade counter should be closer to 230 sq ft once cuts, broken planks and the bad-batch reserve are accounted for.

The calculator splits a complex room into separate sections, so an L-shaped lounge or a kitchen-diner with an alcove gets totalled correctly. Drop in your cost per square foot or per square metre and the tool returns a project total with a 10% wastage line you can adjust upwards for diagonal laying, herringbone or tile patterns with a strong direction. Most flooring offcuts add 10 to 15%, and engineered planks at angles can push that to 20%.

An average UK bedroom sits at about 120 sq ft, a typical living room around 200 sq ft, a single garage 128 sq ft. Knowing the rough shape of these numbers stops you placing an order for half a kitchen because the tape was being read in centimetres on one wall and feet on another. The calculator accepts metric or imperial and converts under the hood.

Circles and triangles trip people up. A round patio with a 4 m diameter has an area of pi r squared, not 4 m squared; the actual figure is closer to 12.6 sq m. The triangle mode halves a base-by-height rectangle for simple wedge sections. For kerb-stones, soakaway pits or anything with a depth, [Cubic Feet Calculator](/cubic-feet-calculator) takes the area output and adds the third dimension.