Allowing for Wastage when Ordering your Wooden Floor

When ordering a wooden floor and calculating your floor area, you must allow for a certain amount of wastage. This amount can vary depending on a number of factors, the first of which is the property and fitting method. During the fitting process boards will have to be cut especially to fit your floor. In most cases the board that is cut one end can be used to start the next row, minimising waste. However if a board has to be cut in a particular way (on an angle or cut to a shape for example) you may not be able to use the offcut from that board which will of course have a direct impact in the amount of wastage. Wood flooring, being a natural product, will have knots, character and colour variation. Everybody has their personal tastes and preferences and there may be some boards that you choose not to use. If boards are discarded it will increase the wastage on your job and this must be considered when choosing how much you order. Having said this it is always worth considering the extra that would need to be spent to buy a ‘cleaner’ grade of timber. We have often found in the past that allowing for a little more waste to account for discarding the occasional board can still be much cheaper than buying ‘prime’ grade timber that costs vast amounts more and can result in a floor that many consider to be quite bland. 10% wastage is about the industry standard to work on when allowing for wastage. However with our wood flooring, (providing no boards are discarded due to appearance) we have found that working on approx 5% wastage and rounding to the nearest box is usually enough. It’s also worth keeping in mind that here at Wood Flooring from JFJ we offer free delivery on any quantity and therefore if you were to run a box or two short it wouldn’t cost you any extra in delivery charges to order the additional boxes.