Tile Count Calculator NZ
This calculator works out how many tiles you need for a floor or wall in New Zealand, from the area you are covering and the size of your chosen tile, with a waste allowance built in for cuts, breakages and pattern matching. Tiling is unforgiving when you run short: dye lots vary between batches, so a handful of extra tiles bought later may not match, and big-format or patterned tiles create plenty of offcuts that have to be allowed for. Working out the right number up front, and rounding to whole boxes, avoids both the shortfall and the waste of badly over-ordering. The method is simply the area to tile divided by the area of one tile, plus a percentage for waste. You enter the room length and width, the tile dimensions in millimetres, and the waste allowance, and the calculator returns the number of tiles needed and the area covered. A waste allowance of around ten percent suits a straight lay, with more for diagonal layouts, large tiles, or rooms with lots of cuts around fixtures. Tiles are usually sold by the box, so round the result up to whole boxes and buy from the same batch for a consistent finish, keeping a few spares for future repairs. An estimate to plan your tiling job and order.
Round up to whole boxes and buy from one batch for a consistent finish. Allow more waste for diagonal or patterned layouts. An estimate for planning only.
How it works
The area to tile is the length times the width. Each tile's area is its length times width, converted from millimetres to square metres. The tiles needed is the area divided by the tile area, increased by the waste allowance and rounded up to whole tiles.
Worked example
A 4 by 3 metre floor is 12 square metres. With 300 by 300 millimetre tiles, each covers 0.09 square metres, so about 133 tiles, plus a 10 percent allowance, rounds up to 147 tiles.
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