How Much Tile to Order: Measuring, Waste and the 10% Rule

Running short on tile halfway through a job is one of the more expensive mistakes in a remodel, because the replacement box will not be from the same production run and the colour will not quite match. Here is how to avoid it.

Measure in rectangles

Break the space into rectangles, multiply length by width for each, and add them together. That is your square footage. Do not subtract small obstacles such as a toilet flange or a floor vent: you will cut those pieces out of whole tiles anyway, so the material is still consumed.

Do subtract anything genuinely large: a kitchen island footprint, a built-in tub, a walk-in closet that is getting carpet instead.

Then add waste

The standard allowance is 10%, and it covers cuts, the occasional cracked piece, and the tile you will want in the garage in two years when something gets chipped.

Go to 15% when any of these apply:

• The layout is diagonal or herringbone, because every perimeter piece is a cut
• The room is small, since edge cuts are a much larger share of a small floor
• The tile is large format, where a bad cut wastes a lot of material at once
• The room is an odd shape, with alcoves, angles or a bay

Go to 20% for a patterned tile that has to line up across the floor, or for natural stone where you may reject individual pieces for colour.

Order it all at once

Tile is made in batches, and batches vary. The lot number is printed on the box, and two lots of the same product can be noticeably different side by side. Ordering the full quantity in one go is the only reliable way to stay in one lot.

This matters most with anything that is not a flat solid colour: natural stone, any glazed product with movement, anything described as “variation: high”.

Keep the leftovers

Whatever is left at the end belongs in a dry corner of the garage, still in the box, with the lot number visible. A single spare tile is the difference between a twenty-minute repair and re-doing a floor.

Send us your square footage and what pattern you are laying, and we will tell you what to order and what is currently in stock.