How to Measure Stairs for Hardwood Installation

Choose if you want to use inches or feet for this process. Use inches if you are not comfortable with fractions and round up to the next whole inch when measuring. Multiply the total square inches at the end of this process by 0.00694444444 to get the total square footage.

Measure the length and width of the top of the second stair up from the bottom. Write down these measurements and multiply them to get the area.

Measure the vertical side of the same stair underneath the top. Write down these measurements and multiply them to get the area.

Add the two area measurements together from Step 2 and Step 3.

Count the total number of stairs from the bottom stair to the top stair. Only count the top side of each stair. Multiply the total number of stairs by the total area calculated in step 4.

If there is a square or rectangular landing in the middle of the staircase, measure the length and width of it. Multiply these two figures to get the area of the landing and add it to the overall area of the stairs.

Sometimes staircases have triangular landings splitting them in half. If it is a right-triangle, simply multiply the length of the 2 perpendicular sides together then divide by 2. For finding the area of irregular or acute triangles, see the link below.

The final figure is the total area needed to cover your staircase with hardwood.