How much extra hw flooring do you order?
JohnT8
| Posted in Construction Techniques on
Curious how much extra flooring you order when doing a hardwood floor. If you have a 400 sq ft room, do you order 450 sq ft of flooring, or what?
I have 585 sq ft of flooring to put down and was planning on buying an extra 50-100 sq ft of flooring. The first flooring place I got a price from was trying to talk me into 720 sq ft. I didn’t know if they were being helpful or trying to sell lots of flooring.
jt8
The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept. — John Gardner
Replies
Looks like 20% waste/overage. then rounded up to a nice even figure.
But for a small room? Only so many places to use up those cut offs and half pieces.
Might not be too far off .
If the pattern is straight, there are few bump-outs in the room, and the wood is high enough quality so all the pieces can be used, I would shoot for 10% and round off to the nearest full box.
"Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Eddie,
Can you return it if you get too much? I even think 10% is too much. I've done less than 10 flooring jobs, tile, wood and pavers, but have always had way too much left over when allowing 10%, but it's no big deal when you can return it.
Mikey
Probably can't return it because of lot numbers. But as Calvin points out, wider boards will probably have a higher waste factor. For prefinished flooring, I think I was buying it in 22 sf boxes, so if he needs 585 sf div by 22 = 26.5 boxes, so i would order at least 28 boxes, probably 29."Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
If you've never done it b/4, maybe 10% is a bit thin. BUT, I've never (and I'm no floor guy) come close in strip flooring to needing 10%. Wider engineered boards and long halls/walls maybe. 2 to 3-1/4 I don't think so.
20% over is just plain gonna piss you off unless you want alot extra in case of future damage and you cut it out rather than refinish.
What you cut off the end of the run, becomes the starter later. If there's only shorts and longs, no mediums-you might think the pattern will become screwed up, when in reality the color and randomness is so different you won't pick up anything but the most glaring differences.
And of course, quality of product-if there's alot of bogus you need more to pad against that.
A 400 sf room you might have 2 drywall buckets of discard pcs. How much do you think that is in sf of product?
How many feet per box?
A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
Actually, I was kinda thinking their 20%+ extra was a bit excessive and thought I must either be doing something wrong, or they were trying to make a few extra $$. And no, I don't want a bunch left over. At least one of the types I was looking at was on clearance, so no return on that one.
How many feet per box?
Hmm, they've got 15 cases listed for 720 sq ft. So 48 (or maybe 2 boxes in a case and 24 in a box?)
jt8
The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept. -- John Gardner
Edited 11/26/2008 5:38 pm by JohnT8
5% extra and round up to the next even box IF it is good quality flooring-as in no reject pieces.
If you really want to be safe, add 1 more box-usually 22 sq.'
I just did 600 + sq.' with a 5% waste factor and still had flooring left over.
silver
For the house I recently finished (3000SF of HW floor), couldn't return the stuff without a huge restocking fee, so I just had them deliver 3,200 SF and just planned on making another trip myself to pick up the exact number of boxes I would need to finish the job. That worked great. I think I bought about 3300SF total. It was Bruce 3 1/4"X3/4" prefinished oak.
Runnerguy
My HW flooring vendor wants to always add 10%. I'm real slow so I'm constantly looking at the pieces and where the joints are. I usually have very little waste. You will end up with a few geeked ones that you can't use, but I never need 10% additional.
I don't do it everyday but hardwood flooring doesn't usually leave a lot of waste if you keep in mind what you've cut off and use them up. Have a router with the right bit and you have even less.
For that size two boxes would be plenty I think if your unsure of yourself, I would probably go one. We usually go 10% extra on something like vinyl siding -- think of the waste on window cutouts and gable ends. You shouldn't have anywhere near that amount on a HW floor.
I will say that prefinished floors seem to me to have more bad peices in them. I remeber some brazilian cherry a customer got from lumber liquidators had a lot of junk in it, four or more boards in a box sometimes. It wasnt cherry or brazilian, looked like a hodgepodge of hardwoods all finished the same color but definatly not the same species. Two boxes would be like 8% so maybe two to be safe, could depend on the availabality too.
Edited 11/26/2008 8:55 pm ET by danno7x
As others have said, I think that depends on the room.
On my current project we are using antique reclaimed heart pine. "Random" width - really 3 different widths. ~ $24./sqft
We only ordered 10% over actual square footage because we can "bury" the not so great pieces under the kitchen cabinets.
Jim
I agree with Cal, 5% tops, unless it is such a long lead item and you suspect quality. Other factors to consider is the concern for consistent grain or color (ie. heart grain vs. flat grain), the intended pattern (ie. strip vs. herring bone), length of pieces, some mills will tell you aprox. what to expect.
If I were doing several rooms, I dedicate smaller and/or lower quality pieces to closets or other non prominent locations.
Edited 11/27/2008 3:13 pm ET by TGNY
400 sq foot room.
I would order 400/sq foot per box+1 if special order.
Last job:1635sq ft/ 22sq ftper box=74.31 boxes, really 75 boxes. So ordered 76.
The wood was so good I had a box left over and some pieces. Today unless the box is damaged you don't need to order way over.
All great points, but let's find out when the installation will take place. You guys covered it all, but here's another tip. Always, get a few extra boxes if it's prefinished. I've had people buy from me over the years that didn't get around to actually installing the floor for one to two years later. Something changed their schedule. Then they find out they're short and the stuff was discontinued.
And don't forget about potential repairs that may be needed years down the road.
Good point. I always make sure I have at least 3/4 box left for problems.
unless things are really chopped up, I shoot for 7-8% overage. Sometimes I can do a job on only 4% waste. But I buy darn good product too. I can see me burning 15% of some of the stuff I see on jobs.
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
It depends on how much you will cull out. If you are just asking for how much waste is there if you don't cull anything, that's usually well under 10%, probably closer to 5% or even less.
I just finished a floor with exceptionally good 4" red oak, not graded select, but close to it with a large number of 4' to 8' pieces. I culled about 10% and ended up with what's essentially a select floor.
Other times I've used cheap box store #1 red oak and culled about 25% and had a floor not nearly as good.
I like a uniform floor so I can't imagine not culling.
Good building
Beer was created so carpenters wouldn't rule the world.