How much paint do I need?

Too much paint can cost you money. Too little can cost you time. We’ll show you how to calculate exactly how much paint you need to save you both. Now, there’s an easy way, and there’s a hard way.

The easy way is to use our handy Paint Calculator. We’ve got it down to a science.

If you’d rather crunch the numbers yourself, then there’s the hard way. Which is quite easy too, actually. Just use this simple equation:

Step One

You’re about to paint your bedroom. Measure the height and width of the walls, plus the width of any doors or windows. The walls are 3 metres high and 3 metres wide. The doors and windows are ½ a metre across, leaving a surface area of 2.5 metres per wall.

The surface are to paint = (4 walls x 2.5 metres each) x 3 metres high = 30 square metres.

Step Two

You’ve decided to paint with British Paints Clean and Protect Low Sheen. Excellent choice. You can easily find the spreading rate of products on the back of the tin. It may be labelled ‘Coverage’. In this case, your coverage is 16 square metres per litre.