5/16 Unfinished Flooring: Thickness and Widths

In the Hardwood Flooring Industry, Flooring is called out by Thickness first then by Width.

Example: 5/16” x 2” (5/16” is the thickness and 2” is the face width)

5/16” flooring is primarily used in the older traditional style homes. For instance, San Francisco, CA has a tremendous amount of turn of the century housing. 5/16” floors were the conventional style for most homes in the area. Today many homes in the area continue to carry out this tradition by sanding and finishing the floors to bring back the luster of the original.

 

Red Oak and White Oak are the usual species milled into 5/16” flooring. 5/16” x 2” is known in the flooring industry as “strip” flooring. All larger widths from 3” to 8” are known as “plank” flooring. Many hardwood flooring distributors will carry these species cut into 5/16” x 1”, 1½”, 2”, 3”, 4”, 5”, 6”, 7”, 8”. They receive 5/16 flooring in random length bundles, anywhere from 2’ to 12’.

 

Pieces Per Factor 5/16” x 1” 24 2 5/16” x1½” 40 5 5/16” x 2” 30 5 5/16” x 3” 16 4 5/16” x 4” 15 5 5/16” x 5” 12 5 5/16” x 6” 12 6 5/16” x 7” 6 3.5 5/16” x 8” 6 4

 

If you are planning to upgrade or patch an already installed 5/16” floor, buying the correct quantity is crucial to your bottom line. Flooring is purchased by the square foot (SF), and understanding how much you need involves doing basic math. By using simple formulas and the table above, you can easily determine how many square feet are in each bundle.

 

To figure out how many square feet are in a 6’ bundle of 5/16” x 2” “strip” flooring take the bundle length (6’) and multiply it by the factor from above (5) and you will get 30/SF. Anther way to understand how to generate the square footage is to use the linear foot (LF) model. Each piece in a 3” bundle is 3”. Therefore, there are 3LF per piece. 5/16” x 2” x 6’ bundle: There are 30 pieces in the bundle (use table above), which means 30 x 6 = 180. 180 LF in the bundle multiplied by the face width (2”) = 360. 360 divided by 12 = 30/SF.

 

Mixed Width 5/16” Unfinished Floors Occasionally floors are created with multiple widths. Many homeowners like the look of mixed width floors and will have widths of 3”, 5”, 7”. Figuring out the SF needed seems tricky but with simple math understanding how much flooring needed makes it easy. Let’s look at an example of a mixed floor calculation. If you need 500 SF of 3”, 5”, 7” plank flooring you need to figure out how much of each flooring width is needed to complete the floor?

 

Start with 500 SF and divide it by the total number of inches (widths = 3+5+7=15) ordered. Then multiply the sum of the widths by each width size.

 

500 ÷15 = 33.33 x 3 = 99.99 round up to 100 500 ÷15 = 33.33 x 5 = 166.67 round up to 167 500 ÷15 = 33.33 x 7 = 233.33 round down to 233

 

If you add up the total square footage it will equal 500 SF.

 

Now convert each width with the bundle factor from table above equally. Always round up.

 

3” bundle factor is 4. 100 ÷ 4 = 25 5” bundle factor is 5. 167 ÷ 5 = 33.4 round up to 35 7” bundle factor is 3.5. 233 ÷ 3.5 = 66.6 round up 67 We call these #’s. We need 25#’s of 3”, 34#’s of 5, and 67#’s of 7”. Take the total amount of numbers needed and multiply then again by the bundle factor. 25# x 4 = 100 34# x 5 = 170 67 x 3.5 = 235 505

 

505 total SF would be needed to complete your 5/16” x 3”, 5”, and 7” mixed width hardwood floor.