Your floor was tiled 5 years ago, and now you have a few cracked tiles that need to be replaced. The tiles you have purchased may have been the “end of the line” and have been discontinued. Do you replace the entire floor? It’s not necessary if you planned for overages and have stored the extra tiles away for a “rainy day”.
Even if you’re having your tiles professionally installed, it is imperative to know how much tile is needed. It’s a simple calculation! For example, if you have a rectangular room, you would simply multiply the length of the room by the width of the room to determine the area of the room. However, if there is an alcove, for example, in the room, then you would calculate the area of the alcove and add it to the area of the remainder of the room. If the tile is to be applied to the walls, then the width of the wall would be multiplied by the height of the wall to determine the area, then multiplied by 4 to determine the area of all the wall area to be tiled. If a room measures 10 x10 square feet, the area measures 100 square feet. Therefore, you need 100 square feet of the selected tiles to apply to the floor for coverage. The question then becomes, how much overage should you order? A simple rule of thumb is to order between 15 and 20% overage. Breakage occurs when tile is being cut during the application process or may crack due to heavy traffic. By having the ability to anticipate how much tile is needed, you can better budget for the costs of materials and installation. Generally speaking, there are 10 square feet of tile per box unless otherwise indicated. In order to determine how many boxes of tiles are required to complete the job, the total square footage is divided by the number of tiles per box.
