Plank vs Herringbone Laminate Flooring: Waste Percentage & Installation Complexity

Choosing between plank style and herringbone style laminate flooring involves more than a visual preference. Material waste percentage and installation complexity can differ by a wide margin, and both directly affect your order quantity, installation time and total budget. This guide compares the two formats with practical figures you can use when planning a project.

Understanding Plank Style and Herringbone Style Laminate Flooring

Plank style laminate flooring is made of long, straight boards laid in parallel rows. A typical plank is 180–220 mm wide and 1200–1400 mm long, and the installation follows a straight or lightly staggered joint pattern. The cutting process is predictable and the layout plan is fast to prepare.

Herringbone style laminate flooring uses shorter boards, usually 600–900 mm long, joined at 90-degree angles to form a continuous V-shaped weave. The pattern adds a tailored, upscale character to a room, but it also changes the behaviour of every cut around walls, doorways and columns.

Material Waste Percentage: Plank Style vs Herringbone Style

Material waste is the share of purchased flooring that ends up as offcuts. For a straight plank layout, an experienced installer keeps waste at 5–8%. For herringbone, the common range is 10–15%, and complex rooms can push it to 20%.

The geometry of the herringbone pattern explains the extra waste. The installer must establish a precise centre line and maintain the weave when each row meets a wall, pipe or door opening. The board that fills such a gap is trimmed at an angle, and the leftover piece is usually too short or too pointed to fit anywhere else in the pattern.

Plank style avoids most of this loss. A board cut at a wall is still a clean rectangle, so it can be moved to the next row as a starter piece. Fewer cuts and more reusable offcuts keep the total close to the theoretical minimum. For a durable plank surface with a strong wear layer, the aluminium-oxide scratch-resistant plank series is a practical starting point.

Aluminum Oxide Scratch-Resistant Laminate Plank FlooringThis plank-style laminate features a high-hardness aluminum oxide wear layer for superior scratch resistance, making it a practical option for reducing material waste during installation.View Product →

Installation Complexity: Straightforward vs Demanding

A trained installer can lay plank style laminate in a rectangular room in a few hours. The sequence is linear: install the underlayment, lay the first row, cut the final board and continue row by row while staggering the end joints. The simplicity also makes plank style a reasonable DIY project when the room is regular.

Herringbone installation is a different craft. The installer has to mark the pattern axis, place the first boards with millimetre precision and work outward in both directions. Any small error becomes visible across the entire floor, so experienced teams usually charge two to three times more per square metre for herringbone layouts.

• Installation speed: plank style is roughly twice as fast.
• Cutting complexity: herringbone requires angled cuts on many boards, including both ends.
• Accuracy requirement: herringbone leaves no room for alignment errors.
• Repair difficulty: replacing a herringbone board can require dismantling a whole section.

The extra time and cost are justified in living rooms and entrance halls where the pattern is the centerpiece, as long as the project budget already accounts for them. A herringbone laminate made specifically for living room use combines the decorative weave with the wear resistance required for daily traffic.

Herringbone Laminate Flooring for Living RoomsDesigned for living rooms, this herringbone laminate combines a decorative woven pattern with durable wear resistance, offering an eye-catching centerpiece that withstands daily traffic.View Product →

How Much Extra Laminate Flooring Should You Order?

Use the following formula to calculate the order quantity: room area multiplied by one plus the waste percentage.

Example: for a 40 m² living room laid in herringbone with a 15% waste factor, you need 40 × 1.15 = 46 m² of laminate. In a room with many corners, use 18% and order about 47.2 m², then round up to full cartons.

Always round up to the next full carton and keep one untouched carton as repair stock. Laminate tones can vary between batches, and a discontinued line may make future replacement impossible. For deeper planning guidance, the manufacturer's resources section provides installation checklists and underlayment recommendations.

Do not forget to measure doorways, closets and transition zones separately. These small areas generate some of the highest waste per square metre, and leaving them out of the total is one of the most common ordering mistakes.

Choosing the Right Pattern for Your Space

After comparing waste and installation complexity, the decision balances style, room geometry and use case.

Choose plank style when

• you want a clean look that makes long, narrow rooms feel larger;
• the budget is sensitive to labour and material waste;
• a homeowner or general contractor without specialist flooring skills does the installation;
• future repairs need to be simple and inexpensive.

Choose herringbone style when

• a strong decorative statement is wanted in a living room, entrance hall or dining room;
• the room is reasonably rectangular and large enough to show the weave;
• a professional installer with herringbone experience is available;
• the 10–15% extra waste is accepted as part of the upscale look.

In dining rooms and kitchens, where spills are common, select a water-resistant herringbone laminate. The water-resistant core prevents the many seams from swelling when moisture gets in, protecting the integrity of the pattern over time.

Water-Resistant Laminate Flooring for Dining RoomsEngineered with a moisture-resistant HDF core, this laminate keeps its herringbone pattern intact against spills and humidity, ideal for dining rooms where water exposure is common.View Product →

If you are still weighing the visual differences, our guide to choosing wood-look plank style laminate flooring covers the main selection criteria in detail and is a useful companion to this article.

Practical Tips to Minimize Waste and Installation Cost

• Measure each room individually; averaging areas hides the geometry that creates waste.
• Prefer rectangular rooms for herringbone, since every irregular wall increases offcuts.
• Ask the installer for a cutting plan before you order material.
• Buy all boxes from the same batch to keep the tone consistent across the pattern.
• For a DIY plank installation, raise the waste factor to 10% to cover beginner cutting errors.
• Use matching transition profiles at doorways and between plank and herringbone zones to cover expansion gaps cleanly.

Transition strips, stair noses and skirting are normally ordered separately from the main flooring. Selecting them from the same supplier guarantees that the colour and surface texture match the planks, which is especially visible where two patterns meet.

Frequently Asked Questions

Plank style and herringbone style laminate flooring are not just two different looks; they are two different planning exercises. Plank style keeps waste low, installation fast and repairs simple. Herringbone trades those advantages for a distinctive woven pattern that makes a room memorable. Measure carefully, use the appropriate waste factor, and order from a manufacturer that offers matching underlayment and transition profiles to keep the project on budget and the result impressive for years.