Parquet Planner

• Flat: no more than about 2–3 mm dip under a 2 m straightedge. Sand down high spots and fill dips in concrete; replace any broken floorboards.
• Dry: fresh concrete must be fully cured. Always lay a vapour barrier (plastic sheet) on concrete and over crawl spaces. If unsure, do a moisture test.
• Clean: sweep and vacuum away all grit — a single small stone under the floor can cause a creak.

• A saw — jigsaw, mitre saw or a fine-tooth hand saw
• Spacers (to hold the expansion gap at the wall)
• Tapping block and pull bar (to knock the planks together)
• Tape measure, pencil and a square
• Utility knife and hammer
• Knee pads, dust mask and safety glasses

• Leave an expansion gap to every wall, pipe and threshold using spacers (laminate and engineered wood usually 8–10 mm, vinyl about 5 mm). Without it the floor can buckle as it moves with the seasons.
• Lay the row dead straight along the straightest wall.
• If the room isn't a whole number of plank widths wide, the last row will be narrower than the rest. If it would be a thin strip that is hard to click in, rip the first row down too, so the first and last rows end up about the same width. If the last row is wide enough, lay the first row whole. Under Pro › The rows the app works out both widths for you.

• Pipes: mark the centre of the pipe on the plank and drill a hole that is the pipe diameter + 20 mm (10 mm clearance all round, so the floor can move). Then saw a channel from the plank's edge in to the hole, lay the plank around the pipe, and glue the sawn-out piece back in behind it. After laying, snap on pipe collars (two-part rings, also called escutcheons) over the pipes to hide the holes neatly.
• Door frames: saw a slice off the bottom of the frame so the floor can slide underneath it — never cut the plank around the frame. Lay a plank upside-down on the floor as a height guide for where to saw.
• Mind the expansion gap to the walls here too, and keep your offcuts — they often fit as the start of the next row.

Enter your room measurements and the plank size, and the calculator works out how many planks and packs you need — cutting waste is already included. The floor is counted board by board in every pattern. With herringbone, chevron and diagonal, how many offcuts you can reuse still depends on how you cut, so the real need can differ slightly. Only on very large floors is the count estimated, and then it is marked ≈. On top of that you choose a reserve for miscuts and damaged planks in the shopping list: 5% is usually enough for the straight patterns, 10% for herringbone, chevron and diagonal. The packs in the answer already include that reserve, so don't add it again. The waste percentage covers cutting only; the reserve and whatever is left in the last pack are not part of it.

For a rectangular room: length × width. A 4 × 5 metre room is 20 m². For L-shaped or irregular rooms, draw the room shape in the planner and the area is calculated automatically — no formulas needed.

It depends on the room and the pattern. If you count by hand, the rule of thumb is 5–10% for straight laying and 10–15% for herringbone and diagonal. In a real room the waste can be lower or a good deal higher — short walls, many corners and planks that don’t divide evenly into the room all push it up. The calculator simulates the laying instead, so the waste for your room is already in its plank count — on top of that you only add a small margin for mistakes (see the first question).

Yes. For straight, brick and step patterns the cutting list gives a numbered, row-by-row laying plan plus a printable saw template for every tricky board: boards meeting a sloped wall get an angled template with both edge lengths, and the inner corner of an L-shaped room gets its notch measured to the millimetre. For herringbone, chevron and diagonal the list groups the cut pieces by shape instead, with count, measurements and saw template — pieces that turn up only once or twice you measure against the wall on site. The measurements don't allow for the width of the saw blade, so always check against the wall before you cut.

The classic advice: lay the planks parallel with the light from the main window, or along the longest wall in narrow rooms. Try both directions in the calculator — the plank count updates instantly.

Yes — it works for any plank-shaped flooring: solid wood, engineered wood, laminate and vinyl/LVT click floors. Pick your material and typical plank sizes and expansion gaps are filled in for you.

Floating floors need a gap to every wall, pipe and threshold so the floor can expand with humidity. Laminate and engineered wood usually need 8–10 mm, solid wood 10–15 mm and click vinyl about 5 mm. Follow the instructions for your floor. The skirting hides the gap.

Yes. Add more rooms with the ＋ Room button, give each one a name, and you get a combined total of planks, packs, underlay and skirting for the whole project — and you can print everything as one document.

It depends on your country, and it only ever covers a professional's labour — never materials, and never a floor you lay yourself. In the UK and the US there is no tax relief for laying a floor in your own home. In Sweden (ROT, 30 %), Finland (household deduction) and Germany (20 %) you may be entitled to a deduction for the labour, depending on each country's conditions; Norway and Denmark do not for ordinary floor laying. (Rules as of 2026.)