Vinyl tiles are manufactured in a range of square or rectangular sizes.

Unlike rolls of flooring which are sold in lineal metres, tiles are priced by the box and charged either as a piece count or coverage in square metres.

When it comes to calculating the quantity of tiles needed for an installation job, it's safest to use the piece count because that lets you account for the individual tiles that will need trimming.

The tiles that run around the perimeter of a room are called border tiles.

These are the ones that are trimmed to fit the room dimensions.

The full tiles that make up the main body of the area are called field tiles.

Example of a quantity calculation

Say you had been asked to lay 300 x 300 vinyl tiles in the room shown at right.

How many tiles will you need?

Step 1: Divide the width of the area by the tile width

2630 (width of room) ÷ 300 (width of tile) = 8.7, so 9 tiles will be needed.

Step 2: Divide the length of the area by the tile width

3540 (length of room) ÷ 300 (width of tile) = 11.8, so 12 tiles will be needed.

Step 3: Multiply the width and length quantities

9 x 12 = 108 tiles.

Balancing border tiles

There are times when it's best to balance the width of the border tiles, particularly when you can see both sides of the floor area at once.

This means that instead of trimming the border tiles on one side only, you halve the finished size needed and take the same amount off both sides.

For example, if you decided to balance the borders on either side of the room as shown above, the calculations would be as shown below.