Skirting and Coving Length Calculator

Who this is for

How many lengths to buy, from your own tape measure. Enter each wall and doorway with your stock length and wastage, then coving, architrave and dado below.

Anyone fitting or replacing skirting board, coving, architrave or dado rail in a room, whether doing it themselves or checking a fitter's materials list.

What this helps you track

• The room perimeter from each wall you measure
• The doorways and openings where skirting stops
• The net run with your own wastage figure added
• The number of stock lengths to buy, rounded up, and the offcut left
• Coving, architrave and dado worked out the same way

How to use it

1. Write the room, the product, the stock length it is sold in and your wastage percentage in the header.
2. Measure each wall along the floor and enter it; enter each doorway or opening width and tick deduct.
3. The net run, run with wastage, stock lengths and offcut are worked out in the browser and the workbook.
4. For coving or dado enter the wall run with a count of 1; for architrave enter one door's length round the frame, the number of doors and 1 or 2 sides.
5. Take the lengths figure to the shop, and buy by the stock length the product is actually sold in.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser
• Excel / Google Sheets workbook

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The workbook uses plain formulas only — SUM, IF, COUNTIF and the like — so it opens in Excel, LibreOffice and Google Sheets without anything breaking, and every calculated cell is grey so you can see which figures it worked out.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

Where does the wastage figure come from?

From you. It depends on how many mitres and joins the room needs, the stock length and how confident you are with cutting. The sheet supplies no allowance; it adds the percentage you enter.

How are stock lengths rounded?

The run with wastage is divided by your stock length and rounded up to the next whole length, because you cannot buy part of one. The offcut is what is left over from the last length.

How do I measure architrave for a door?

Measure up one side of the frame, across the head and down the other side for one face of the door, enter that as the run and set sides to 2 if both faces of the doorway get architrave.

Do I deduct doorways for coving?

Usually not, because coving runs round the ceiling above the door. Enter the full wall run in the second table; the deduct column only applies to the skirting table.