If you’ve taken a look online at the different metre types, you’ll know that there is a difference between a linear metre and a square metre.
To keep things short, you can think of square metres as being squared or symmetrical in a sense, and linear metres as being a measurement in all directions that ends up with the total area of a metre. These measurements are essentially two ways to calculate an area measurement that may be complicated by the shape of the area you’re looking at – whether that be a floor, roof or anything else.
In this article, we’ll take a look at the best way to work out how to work out lineal metres for building materials and what you can do when you need to know the area of a flooring material that isn’t square.
What is a linear metre in Australia?
In Australia, we use linear metres when measuring the length of products such as carpet and Colorbond roofing, for example, as it best represents the length of material over square metres.
You can think of an Australian linear metre as being the non-square measurement of a series of edges of a material or floor space that results in a distance that is around 3 to 4 metres.
As an example, most carpet rolls will have a price based on a lineal metre, which for a good portion of carpet rolls is around 3.66 metres or 4 metres. This is your lineal metre, and you’re able to convert this price to a square metre cost by simply dividing your carpet cost by the width of the carpeting roll you’re looking to buy.
How do you work out a linear Metre?
Even though the linear metre math problem seems quite complicated, it doesn’t take too much work to determine lineal metres if you have the width of a product on hand.
To work our linear metres, all you’ll need to do is grab your calculator and have some information on a carpet roll handy as you’ll need these measurements to help you out.
How to Calculate These Linear Meters
First, start by finding the total area of a floor and work on dividing this by the width of your material.
For example, if you have a floorboard that is 60m2 and 100mm wide you will have a linear length that is 600.
Of course, you may need an online platform to help calculate more complex lineal metre measurements, though, these conversion factors should do the trick for your area measurements.
Is a linear Metre the same as a Metre?
Keeping things brief, linear meters or linear metres can be the same as a metre in that they are a measurement of a single dimension or material. However, don’t get this confused with square metres and lineal metres as these are significantly different measurements.
An example of a product which can be measured as a linear metre is buying fencing which is usually priced in linear metres, not square metres whereas a product such as timber flooring is normally priced in square metres.
A linear metre is a single length measurement, and a metre is also a single length measurement. Though, one square metre is an area measurement and is worked out differently to linear meters.
How to work out m2.
To end, we’ll take a quick look at working out metres square of materials and other measurements.
Going back to our early math subjects in school, square metre measurements are simply the resulting area from a length x width calculation.
If your roofing materials are 10m long and 6m wide, you would multiply these two numbers together and get the overall m2 or metres squared area. In this case, 60m2.