It’s bathroom month on the blog this month. While I wait for my ensuite to be finished, I thought I should share with you some of the how to’s as well as our expert tips and tricks. Today we begin that with sharing how to calculate floor space.
How To Calculate Floor Space
Calculating floor space is super easy when you have a square or rectangle room. It can be a little more challenging when your room is an odd shape like our ensuite though, so I thought I would give you the sum for the easy room, and then take you through how we calculated the floor space for our odd shaped room as well.
In a square or rectangle room the sum is simply length x width. Let’s look at the example below…
In the example above, a square the walls are 10mL x 10mW, therefor the sum would be 10m x 10m = 100m2.
In this rectangle room, the sum would be much the same 5m width x 10m length, or 5m x 10m = 50m2
Naturally our ensuite is not a square or a rectangle, its an L shape, which is actually just as easy to measure. The trick is to break it up into 2 separate shapes and calculate 2 different measurements and then add them together.
So for our ensuite above, we are looking at 2 rectangles. First the larger space, 10m length x 5m width or 10m x 5m = 50m2 and then calculation two, 4m length x 5m width or 4m x 5m = 20m2. After making the two calculations, add them both together for the total floor space of the room, in this case, 50m2 + 20m2 = 70m2.
As long as you can read a tape measure, you are ready to calculate the floor space in any given room. Just remember if you are calculating to order tiles, you will need to allow for waste, be sure to check with a tiling professional to find out how much extra to order.
How did you go with Maths at school? Which subject was your strong point? Have you had to order flooring for your home?
Nicole xxx
I love showing my kids these sort of practical examples of how maths is useful in everyday life! Sometimes they complain that they’ll never need to know how to do whatever maths topic it is they are learning at the time! I suspect in building quite a lot of maths is useful.
WE have this same conversation with our kids all the time! Only takes a day here and there at work with the builder to show them just how often they can use maths at work. You are right, maths in building is used all day every day, though most of it simple maths.
I am pretty hopeless at maths – words are definitely more my thing! Area and volume always confuse the hell out of me, so thank you for the tips, and making it look so easy ?
#teamIBOT
I was terrible at maths myself, but this sum is super easy. Thanks for dropping by xx
I was useless at maths at school the only way I can visualise anything is to see it out on the ground. When we built our deck when we were trying to work out sizing I needed our builder to show me how big/small things would be.
I can’t wait to see how your bathroom turns out and I love the hairstyles you have pinned! Maybe I will chop my hair off again! And use your boards for inspiration.
I can’t wait till the bathroom is finished either!! I just pulled out the “It’s Tuesday, where is my tiler??” speech to the builder, can’t say he was impressed :). Just had my hair chopped off, so happy with it! xx
This is really common! Especially, dare I say it, for women. I am useless at space until I can physically see it myself, and the builder will often be called on to mark spaces out on the floor using tape until I am sure of what I am getting. xx
I am the world’s worst at maths – French and English were much more my bag! That said, you make this look so easy, even I could do it (with a calculator!)
This will come in handy Nicole thank you. I used to tell myself I was no good at math just because I didn’t enjoy it at school. But I can use a tape measure and add and multiply so that means I can do math:-)
Terrible at maths, good at graphics which is what this paper reminds me of. I used to change my room around all the time as a teenager and my graphics paper was filled with room layouts.
I failed maths. Badly. Lucky I had Dave to work out all of our house stuff for us.
I was terrible at maths but strangely enough seemed to get the floor plan measurements right most times. I only got caught out when our bathroom tiles were large rectangles and our floor tiles were smaller & I had to order more for the rectangles. Apparently more wastage?!?! Not sure if this is true, or not.
That’s interesting, sometimes there can be a whole lot of waste, depending on the space in which the tiles are being laid. I’ve not heard that you have more waste with rectangles though,but I have never asked that question either ?
[…] week we looked at How to Calculate Floor Space, this week we need to know how to calculate the amount of tiles required to fill that floor space. […]
[…] different purpose than others, some cost more to lay. In our month of bathrooms, we have looked at calculating floor space, and how many tiles to order, now I thought it would be helpful to share what I know about tile […]