It is always recommend adding between 6% - 10% to the total footprint of the required floor area you are planning to cover with wood flooring. This addition, commonly referred to as “waste factor”, is used to cover for cut boards that can not be reused due to their size as well as for the odd boars that is slightly out of character and may need to be discarded.

Purchasing the additional flooring can be looked at as some sort of insurance as the last thing most of us would like happening is getting 95% of the way through a floor installation only to find that we run out of floor boards. Purchasing the additional required following will delay the installation, and in made-to-order finishes may create a slight variation from the original batch. In some instances, although not as common, the flooring purchased has been discontinued and therefore it is no longer available.

In addition, it is good practice to keep at least a box or two incase you may need to repair an area of the floor in the future or maybe discover that you actually did want to put a floor in the coat closet after all.