Advanced options
Tiles are sold by the box, so round up to whole boxes and keep spares from the same batch for repairs; shades vary between batches.
What The Tile Calculator Works Out
- Tiles to order: area x tiles per m2 x (1 + wastage), rounded up. Ten square metres in 30 x 60cm tiles at 10% wastage is 62 tiles. Measure walls as width x height per section and add them; for floors, length x width, and do not subtract small obstacles like a toilet base, since the cuts around them waste more than the area saves.
- Tiles per m2: one square metre divided by the area of a single tile. A 30 x 60cm tile is 0.18 m2, so 5.6 per m2; a 10 x 10cm mosaic is 100 per m2.
- Adhesive guide: a 20kg bag of adhesive typically covers 4 to 5 m2 of wall with a standard notched trowel, and only 2.5 to 3.5 m2 of floor or large-format tile where a deeper bed is needed.
- Wastage: 10% for a straight grid, 15% for diagonal or herringbone layouts, and up to 20% where a room has lots of awkward cuts around pipes, windows and sanitaryware.
- Grout joint width (advanced): adds the joint to each tile's footprint, so fewer tiles are needed per m2. The effect is small for large tiles (a 3mm joint on 30 x 60cm saves about 1.5%) but noticeable for mosaics.
- Custom wastage (advanced): type any percentage to override the dropdown.
- Boxes to buy (advanced): rounds your tile count up to whole boxes using the tiles-per-box figure on the label, and shows the area actually delivered. Always buy from a single batch and keep a few spares boxed for future repairs.
- Tile cost (advanced): the area of tiles in the boxes you buy x your price per m2. Budget ceramic starts around GBP 15 per m2, porcelain GBP 25 to GBP 60, natural stone more; large-format and stone also need stronger adhesive and flatter walls.
- Grout needed (advanced): estimated from tile size, joint width and a 10mm tile thickness using the standard (W + L) / (W x L) x joint x depth x density formula, then rounded up to 2.5kg bags. Needs a joint width to be entered.
- Labour estimate (advanced): area x a tiler's rate per m2. UK tilers commonly charge GBP 30 to GBP 60 per m2 for straightforward work, more for mosaics, herringbone or large-format porcelain, and the sub-line adds tiles and labour together.