Guide · Takeoff
Sheet vinyl takeoff: how much vinyl do I need?
Sheet vinyl is cut off a roll of fixed width and bought by the lineal metre, so a sheet vinyl takeoff is a cut plan, not a floor area plus a percentage. In a wet area the welded seams, the flash coving up the walls and the floor preparation are lines of their own. This guide works through the method and a laundry and bathroom on a 2 m safety vinyl roll.
Roll widths and what you are quoting
Residential sheet vinyl in Australia is commonly sold in 2 m, 3 m and 4 m wide rolls. Safety vinyl for wet areas is usually 2 m wide: Polyflor's Polysafe Hydro, for example, comes in 2 m by 20 m rolls. Check which widths the selected range comes in before you plan the cuts.
Slip resistance in Australia is classified under AS 4586, and safety vinyl data sheets quote it (Polyflor rates Polysafe Hydro Class B under Appendix C). If the specification asks for a rating, check the product meets it.
Drops, and why direction matters
Each piece cut from the roll is a drop, exactly as with carpet off a roll. For a rectangular room:
- Choose which way the roll runs across the room.
- Work out the width the sheet has to cover across the roll: the room width, plus the cove height on each side wall if the floor is flash coved.
- Divide that by the roll width and round up: that is the number of drops. If it lands exactly on the roll width, nothing is left to scribe to the walls, so count another drop or turn the room.
- Each drop is the room length, plus the cove height and a trimming allowance at each end. Manufacturers say to precut with extra for trimming; how much is your call (the example uses 100 mm).
- Lineal metres = drops × drop length. Try the room the other way round as well, and compare.
Direction is not only about price. Installation guides ask for seams that run with the main traffic, not across it, out of places where people turn on the spot, and parallel through doorways, with pieces cut from the same roll so the colour matches. Sometimes the dearer direction is the right one, and that judgement stays with the estimator.
Seams, coving and the other lines
- Welded seams. Polyflor strongly recommends that vinyl sheet is heat welded, including the internal and external joints where the sheet is site cove formed. Measure the seam length in lineal metres, including the run up the cove at each end, and count the internal and external cove corners. Weld rod comes in coils.
- Flash coving. The sheet is turned up the wall over a cove former and finished under a capping strip. Quantum Flooring describes the cove as usually about 100 mm high. Coving is measured as the perimeter of the coved walls less the door openings, where the cove former is tapered off at the frame. The cove former and capping strip are bought in lengths (Quantum's are 2 m), so round up.
- Adhesive. Divide the area being stuck, which is the floor plus the coved strip, by the coverage on the adhesive's data sheet and round up to whole pails. Polyflor asks for the adhesive to set for at least 24 hours before seams are welded, which affects the programme as well as the materials.
- Floor preparation. Sheet vinyl shows every hollow in the floor beneath it. Over the existing bases it describes, Polyflor's guidance calls for a smoothing underlayment at least 3 mm thick, priced on area and depth.
- Moisture testing. AS 1884 covers resilient floor coverings, and its relative humidity test using an in-situ probe (to ASTM F2170) is now the only normative test. Polyflor sets 75% RH as its limit and accepts no responsibility for its vinyl laid on a wetter subfloor. Price the test, and say on the quote what happens if the slab reads high.
A worked example: laundry and bathroom
Example only
The rooms, trimming allowance and cove height are made up to show the method. Use the roll width, cove detail and allowances for the product and installer you are quoting.
A plan has safety vinyl, flash coved 100 mm up every wall, in a laundry of 2.4 by 1.8 m and a bathroom of 2.9 by 2.2 m. The roll is 2 m wide. Each room has one 820 door and nothing built on the floor. Each drop gets 100 mm of cove and 100 mm of trimming at each end, so it is the room length plus 0.4 m.
| Room, roll runs along | Width to cover | Drops | Drop length | Lineal m |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Laundry, the 2.4 m side | 2.0 m | 1, no spare | 2.8 m | 2.8 |
| Laundry, the 1.8 m side | 2.6 m | 2 | 2.2 m | 4.4 |
| Bathroom, the 2.9 m side | 2.4 m | 2 | 3.3 m | 6.6 |
| Bathroom, the 2.2 m side | 3.1 m | 2 | 2.6 m | 5.2 |
The laundry is the catch. Laid along its length it looks like one 2.8 m drop, but the coved sheet needs the full 2.0 m of the roll's width, with nothing left to scribe the side walls. This example treats that as not fitting, so the laundry takes two 2.2 m drops and the bathroom two 2.6 m drops.
Each room on its own: 4.4 + 5.2 = 9.6 lineal metres, which is 19.2 m² of vinyl.
Both rooms from the same roll: the second drop in each room is only partly used. The bathroom needs a strip 1.1 m wide (3.1 m less the full 2 m drop) and the laundry a strip 0.6 m wide. Side by side they take 1.7 m of the roll's width, leaving 0.3 m for the seam edges, so both strips come out of one 2.6 m drop. The order becomes 2.2 + 2.6 + 2.6 = 7.4 lineal metres, which is 14.8 m². That saves 2.2 lineal metres, and both rooms match because they come off one roll.
| Item | Working | Order |
|---|---|---|
| Sheet vinyl, 2 m roll | Laundry drop 2.2 m, bathroom drop 2.6 m, shared drop 2.6 m | 7.4 lm (14.8 m²) |
| Floor area check | 2.4 × 1.8 = 4.32 m², plus 2.9 × 2.2 = 6.38 m² | 10.70 m² |
| Coving | Laundry 8.40 m less 0.82 m door = 7.58 m, bathroom 10.20 m less 0.82 m = 9.38 m | 16.96 lm |
| Cove former and capping strip | 16.96 m ÷ 2 m lengths = 8.48 | 9 lengths of each |
| Area stuck down | 10.70 m² floor plus 16.96 m × 0.1 m of cove (1.70 m²) | 12.40 m² |
| Welded seams | Laundry 1.8 + 0.2 = 2.0 m, bathroom 2.2 + 0.2 = 2.4 m | 4.4 lm |
| Cove corners to weld | Four internal corners in each room | 8 corners |
The roll order buys 14.8 m² to finish 12.40 m², so about 2.4 m² goes to trimming and offcut; room by room it would have been 19.2 m², with 6.8 m² wasted. No flat percentage on the floor area gives either figure. In the bathroom, put the narrow strip on the side away from the door and the shower so the seam stays out of the traffic.
Things a plan does not tell you
- Slab moisture. Only a test on site says whether the slab is dry enough.
- Falls to the waste. The plan shows the floor waste, not whether the falls are formed well enough for vinyl, or who forms them.
- Waterproofing. Domestic wet area waterproofing (AS 3740 in Australia) is often a separate scope. Find out who does it; do not assume the vinyl is the membrane unless the specification says so.
- Tiled wet areas. A tiled bathroom is a separate trade and comes off your scope, as the guide to quoting from builder plans explains.
Make the price subject to a check measure before ordering, as the takeoff versus measure-up guide explains.
Feet and inches
In the US, sheet vinyl is typically sold in widths from 6 ft to 12 ft, cut to length. The method is the same. A 2 m roll is about 6.56 ft wide (1 m is 3.281 ft), and the 7.4 lineal metres above is about 24.3 ft. Squaro reads plans dimensioned in millimetres or metres today; plans in feet and inches are on the roadmap.
How Squaro handles sheet vinyl
Squaro reads the working drawings and the selections, including sheet vinyl lines, and measures each room from the printed dimensions. In your price list, sheet vinyl is a roll product with its own roll width, priced per m², per lineal metre or per roll. Coving, adhesive and floor preparation are products in your own price list, priced the way you buy and sell them. Squaro does not draw seam layouts or plan offcuts across rooms: that stays with you, and you check every line before the quote goes out. See flooring takeoff software.
Sources
- Carpet Factory: sheet vinyl in 2 m, 3 m and 4 m wide rolls, checked 6 October 2026.
- Polyflor Polysafe Hydro: roll size and slip ratings, checked 6 October 2026.
- Polyflor technical manual, section 9: welding (PDF), checked 6 October 2026.
- Beaulieu Canada: sheet vinyl installation instructions (PDF), checked 6 October 2026.
- Quantum Flooring: cove former and capping strip installation (PDF), checked 6 October 2026.
- Attar: updates to AS 1884 and AS 2455, checked 6 October 2026.
- Polyflor technical information: subfloor preparation and moisture (PDF), checked 6 October 2026.
- Flooring Clarity: what is sheet vinyl flooring, checked 6 October 2026.
Related reading
- Carpet lineal metres and roll width, explainedCutting each room along the roll, choosing the direction, and pricing what you actually buy.
- How to calculate floor area from plansBreaking rooms into shapes, deducting islands and voids, with an m² calculator by finish.
- Flooring waste percentage, and when to round up to packsChoosing a waste figure, applying it in the right order, and rounding to whole packs.
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