measurements

[nevetsnosnas]

please can someone advise how you work out the area of something. It's sounds like a school maths question. i was no good at them at school and no good now! i have an area in the garden that measures 16ft x 5ft 10inch, i want to fit some play tiles in this space which measure 500mm x 500mm each. How many will i need to fill the space???

[jackthehat]

Your garden is 4876mm x 1778mm, or, 9.75 x 3.55 tiles...............

[heathfield]

And if you haven't worked it out, that's 40 tiles. But you may want to get a couple extra to allow for accidents (breakages/misalignment, etc) in cutting them to fit.

[factor-fiction]

o make teh maths easier It would be easier if you were to simply remeasure your garden using metric measurements. The maths would surely then be simple.
And even if you can't do the maths why not borrow a tile or make up a piece of cardboard 500mm x 500 mm then go into your garden and see how many you'd need.

[gazzawazza]

Jack, where, or how do you get 3.55 for your tile?

[jackthehat]

1778/500 = 3.55

[gazzawazza]

Aaah, now I see what you've done, you've divided each length by the tile side measurement then multiplied the two together.
Nevetsnosnas, working out an area is really easy especially if the area is square or rectangular. All you need to do is multiply the length of one side (in your case 16ft) by the other (5ft10). However in your question you've given two different units (feet and inches) and metric (500mm). So the only way to work it out is to convert both to metric or imperial. I'll take you through it step by step.
When I'm working out measurements, I take each foot as being 0.3m (there's about 305mm in a foot so this is close enough for building materials). So, you have 16 feet on one side, to convert to metres just multiply 16 x 0.3 = 4.8m.
The other side is 5 feet 10 inches, so 5 x 0.3 = 1.5m, 10 inches works out at 0.25m (25mm per inch) so you have a second side of 1.75m (1.5 + 0.25).
Now multiply the two together, 4.8 x 1.75 = 8.4m2 and you have an area of square metres to fill (imagine an area of one square metre, you have the equivalent of just under 8.5 of these laid side by side).
Each tile covers an area of 0.25m2, once again this is found by multiplying the two sides together, 0.5 x 0.5 = 0.25m2.
You now divide your 8.4m2 by 0.25m2, (8.4 / 0.25 = 33.6).
You need a minimum of 34 tiles, add at least 5% for wasteage and breakages so 40 should be enough.
Hope this helps and hasn't confused you more!

[gazzawazza]

And just to check you have understood, here's a bit of homework!

You have a rectangular area of 20ft by 15ft 6 inches to tile, and your tiles measure 400mm X 400mm, how many tiles do you need (not counting wasteage and breakages?)

I'll be checking back to mark your work so show your working out!

[gazzawazza]

Okay then, don't bother.

[tamborine]

get 2 tiles and place one in front of t'other around the garden, counting how many times you need to place them. Dont need maths for that just a calculator.






























You didn't think I was doing your homework!