How much skirting do I need?
Skirting board or coving — work out the room's perimeter, take off the doorways, add a bit for mitres and offcuts, and get the number of lengths to buy. Order short and the last corner won't reach; order big and you've a spare for a knock. Free, no sign-up.
A guide, not a guarantee. The perimeter is twice the length plus twice the width; we subtract your door gaps and add wastage for mitred corners and offcuts. Buy a touch over — a fluffed mitre on the last length is annoying when the shop has shut. Adhesive or grips, caulk, filler and paint are extra. For coving, leave the door gaps at zero since it runs over the top. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
Perimeter, minus the gaps, in whole lengths.
Start with the perimeter. Skirting and coving run around the edge of a room, so the run you need is the perimeter — twice the length plus twice the width. For an L-shaped or bayed room, add the extra walls with the extra-run box.
Take off the doorways. Skirting stops at each door opening, so we subtract a gap for every doorway. A standard internal door is about 0.8 m; adjust if yours are wider, or set the gaps to zero for coving, which carries straight over the top of doors.
Add wastage for mitres. Every internal and external corner is a 45° mitre, and a fluffed cut means starting that length again. Ten percent is sensible; allow more in a room with lots of short walls and corners, where offcuts are harder to reuse.
Round up to whole lengths. Skirting and coving come in fixed lengths — often 2.4 m, 3.0 m or 4.2 m. We divide the run-plus-wastage by your length and round up, so the last corner always reaches. A spare length is worth having for a future knock or a board that splits.
What this leaves out. Grab adhesive or fixings, caulk for the top edge, filler for the joints, and primer and paint are all separate. Joining lengths along a long wall uses a scarf joint rather than a butt joint — plan where those fall.
Keep every room's details in one place.
Stead remembers your rooms and their sizes, the finishes you chose, and when each job was done — so the next project starts with the numbers already to hand.