About the Carpet Calculator
Carpet is priced and sold by the square yard, not the square foot - a holdover from how broadloom rolls are manufactured - so converting a room's floor area correctly matters before getting a quote.
How It Works
The calculator finds the room's square footage, divides by 9 to convert to square yards, adds a waste allowance for seams and pattern matching, and optionally multiplies by a price per square yard to estimate total cost.
Examples
A standard bedroom
A 14×12 ft room (168 sq ft) converts to 18.67 sq yd before waste, or about 20.5 sq yd with a 10% allowance.
Estimating cost
At $35 per sq yd installed, that same room would run roughly $718 for carpet alone, not including padding or labor beyond the material price entered.
Advantages
- Converts square feet to square yards automatically, matching how carpet is actually priced
- Optional cost estimate when a price per square yard is entered
- Includes a waste allowance for seams and pattern matching
Common Mistakes
- Requesting a quote in square feet when carpet is priced by the square yard
- Not accounting for seam waste in rooms wider than a standard 12 ft roll
- Using too low a waste allowance for a patterned carpet
Edge Cases to Watch For
- Standard broadloom carpet rolls are typically 12 ft wide, so rooms wider than 12 ft need a seam, which can waste material depending on how the seam falls relative to the room's layout.
- Patterned carpet needs extra allowance for matching the pattern across seams, similar to patterned wallpaper - the standard 10% waste allowance is conservative for plain carpet but may be tight for a bold pattern.
- Stairs, closets, and irregular room shapes should be measured and calculated separately rather than folded into one combined square footage figure, since waste factors differ by area.
Common Use Cases
- Getting an accurate carpet quote before shopping
- Estimating material cost for a room or whole-house recarpeting project
- Comparing cost between different carpet price tiers