Carpet calculator: how much carpet do I need?
20 square yards
180 square feet · 15 linear feet off a 12 ft roll · old carpet off this floor: 86 lb · for 12 × 15 ft
Run your own numbers
Enter it the way you measured it: 4.5, 4 1/2,
3/8 or 10' 6".
20 square yards
180 square feet · 15 linear feet off a 12 ft roll · old carpet off this floor: 86 lb
A 12 by 15 ft room, 180 square feet, needs 20 square yards of carpet, because a square yard is 9 square feet. Add a waste allowance for matching the pattern and for seams.
A worked example
A 14 by 20 ft room with a 10% waste allowance, off a 15 ft roll needs 34.2 square yards. 280 square feet plus 10% is 308, which is 34.2 square yards, or 20.5 linear feet off a 15 ft roll. The old carpet coming up off that floor, 31.1 square yards at 4.29 lb, weighs about 133 lb.
How much does carpet weigh?
Carpet weighs 4.29 lb per square yard on average, the 2025 figure CARE, the carpet industry's recycling program, gets from its survey of the mills. A 12 by 15 ft room is 20 square yards, so the carpet coming out of it weighs about 86 lb before the pad. Thick residential broadloom runs heavier: Dixie Group's declaration for its nylon carpets gives 91.8 oz per square yard, 5.74 lb, and its polyester 86.2 oz, 5.39 lb, which puts the same room at 108 to 115 lb. Pick the weight in the calculator and it gives the pounds for your floor, the number a dumpster, a haul-away fee or a carpet recycler charges by.
What else it is called
Carpet is sold by the square yard and by the square foot, cut from a broadloom roll that is usually 12 feet wide, sometimes 15. The square yards are the same whichever width you buy; the linear feet change, because a wider roll wastes less on a wide room and more on a narrow one. Carpet tiles are counted like floor tile, by the piece, not from a roll.
Common sizes
| Room | Square yards | Linear ft, 12 ft roll | Linear ft, 15 ft roll | Old carpet, lb |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 × 8 ft — 64 sq ft | 7.1 | 5.3 | 4.3 | 31 |
| 10 × 10 ft — 100 sq ft | 11.1 | 8.3 | 6.7 | 48 |
| 10 × 12 ft — 120 sq ft | 13.3 | 10.0 | 8.0 | 57 |
| 12 × 12 ft — 144 sq ft | 16.0 | 12.0 | 9.6 | 69 |
| 12 × 16 ft — 192 sq ft | 21.3 | 16.0 | 12.8 | 92 |
| 16 × 20 ft — 320 sq ft | 35.6 | 26.7 | 21.3 | 153 |
| 20 × 20 ft — 400 sq ft | 44.4 | 33.3 | 26.7 | 191 |
Square yards is area ÷ 9. Linear feet is the area divided by the roll width, before any waste added for matching the pattern or for seams. Old carpet is the square yards of the floor at 4.29 lb each, the 2025 US average from CARE, without the pad.
Where the numbers come from
- 1 square yard = 9 square feet, exact by definition. The carpet for a room is the floor area in square yards, plus the waste you add, so no figure here is ours to source.
- Carpet weight: CARE (Carpet America Recovery Effort), California Carpet Stewardship Program 2025 Annual Report, published September 2026: «The average carpet weight in 2025 was estimated at a weighted average of 4.29 pounds per square yard», from CARE's confidential survey of the carpet mills, covering residential and commercial broadloom and carpet tile sold in the United States (4.22 lb in 2024, 4.11 lb in 2021). Read November 4, 2026. CARE 2025 Annual Report (PDF)
- Residential broadloom: The Dixie Group (DH Floors, Fabrica, Masland), Environmental Product Declaration EPD11226, Residential Broadloom with Synthetic Fiber Face Yarn, NSF, issued March 16, 2026, Table 1: total carpet 91.8 oz per square yard in nylon 6, 89.9 in nylon 6,6 and 86.2 in polyester (PET), at the market-average face weight. Divided by 16 that is 5.74 and 5.39 lb per square yard. Read November 4, 2026. Dixie Group EPD11226 (PDF)
This counts the floor area you type in. Carpet comes on a wide roll, so a room wider than the roll needs a seam and the leftover strip is waste, and a pattern has to be matched across it — raise the waste allowance for both. Stairs, closets and an L-shaped room cut more; measure the widest length and width for a room that is not a plain rectangle.
By Javier Miralles · Last updated . How this site is made.
Other materials
Embed this calculator
Free to use on your own site. Copy the code and keep the credit line.