Whether you are a seasoned professional who has already done cabinet sheet material estimation before or are new to the process, estimating sheet materials for a cabinet project is a detail-oriented process. To get accurate cabinet sheet material estimations there are several steps you need to take. This post will walk you through these steps, from generating unit item lists to adding a waste factor and everything in between. Additionally, this post will cover the basic math you need to understand to perform these estimations. The goal is to help you confidently estimate the number of sheet materials needed to make your cabinets.
Essential Tools for Manual Sheet Material Estimation
Having the right tools is key to accurately estimating materials. Some essential estimating tools you will need are:
- Calculator – to reliably do calculations and conversions
- Scaled floor & elevation plan or drawing – to view cabinet layout and sizes
- Pencil and notepad – to take measurements and calculations
Essential Calculations for Sheet Material Estimation
Knowing how to do the right calculations and conversions is essential to accurately estimating materials. These calculations are fairly straightforward but important to know how to do:
- Converting Millimeters to Meters: Measurement in mm / 1000
- Calculating Area in Square Meters from Width, Length & Qty: Area = Width x Length x Qty.
- Increasing an number by a percentage: New Number = Original Number × (1 + (Percentage Increase ÷ 100))
- Basic Division
- Rounding Up: 1.1 = 2, 1.2 = 2, …, 1.8 = 2, 1.9 = 2
Steps For Estimating Sheet Materials
Accurately estimating the amount of sheet materials needed for your cabinet project is important for staying within budget and minimizing waste. Follow the steps and calculations below to ensure you purchase the right amount of materials.
Step 1 – Reading Cabinet Drawings & Plans to produce a unit item list
Start by carefully studying the cabinet floor and elevation plans. Our cabinet sheet material estimation process requires an accurate plan and layout. These plans provide the overall dimensions for all your cabinet units, including the floor and wall cabinet units and your cabinet doors. Accurate dimensioned drawings are essential to converting the design into component material requirements which ultimately result in an accurate sheet material estimation.
Measure each cabinet unit’s width, depth, and height from your plan and write these down on your notepad. We call this list the unit item list and it is simply a list of each cabinet unit needed with its associated width, depth, and height. For example, a unit item list for 4 cabinets would be:
| Cabinet Unit | Width | Depth | Height |
| Floor 1 Door | 300 | 550 | 720 |
| Floor 1 Door | 300 | 550 | 720 |
| Floor 2 Door | 800 | 550 | 720 |
| Wall 2 Door | 1200 | 300 | 900 |
Step 2 – Generate a component item list for each unit
Write down the required cabinet components for each unit in your item list. The components needed to make the unit will vary depending on the construction approach taken. Different geographical regions take different approaches to making cabinets. Often, an industry standard or several industry standards will be defined for your geographical region. For example, Australia has the Australian Cabinet & Furniture Association
Floor 1 Door – 300 x 550 x 720
| Components | Quantity | Width | Length | Quantity | Material |
| Side Panels | 2 | 720 | 550 | 2 | 16mm White Melamine |
| Shelves | 2 | 720 | 540 | 2 | 16mm White Melamine |
| Floor | 1 | 550 | 300 | 1 | 16mm White Melamine |
| Etc. |
Step 3 – Calculate the square meterage for each component
Once you have listed all the components for each cabinet, go through each unit item list and write down the square meterage for each component. This is a two-step process.
Step 3.1 – Convert Millimeters to Meters
Since there are 1,000 millimetres in a meter, you’ll need to convert the measurements from millimetres to meters.
- Width in meters: 720 mm / 1,000 = 0.72 meters
- Length in meters: 550 mm / 1,000 = 0.55 meters
Step 3.2 – Calculate the Area in Square Meters
Multiply the width by the length by the quantity to find the area.
Area = Width x Length x Qty
Area = 0.72 meters × 0.55 meters x 2 = 0.396 x 2 = square meters
| Components | Quantity | Width | Length | Quantity | Material | SQM |
| Side Panels | 2 | 720 | 550 | 2 | 16mm White Melamine | 0.792 |
| Shelves | 2 | 720 | 540 | 2 | 16mm White Melamine | 0.792 |
| Floor | 1 | 550 | 300 | 1 | 16mm White Melamine | 0.165 |
| Etc. |
Step 4 – Calculate the total SQM for each sheet material used
Once you have calculated the square meterage (SQM) for each component, the next step is determining the total square meterage required for each type of sheet material used. You do this by adding together the SQM of all components made from the same material.
In our example, we use White Melamine 16mm for several components. You would sum the SQM of each component made out of White Melamine 16mm to find the total SQM of that material needed.
Total SQM for White Melamine 16mm = 0.792 + 0.792 + 0.165 + etc = 1.749 + etc
| Material Type | Total SQM (excl wastage) |
| White Melamine | 1.749+etc |
| … |
Step 5 – Accounting for Waste
Now that you have the total square meterage needed for each material type, you must add an appropriate adjustment to account for wastage. Whether you like it or not, cabinet-making involves waste, from saw kerfs to unusable offcuts. Adding an appropriate waste factor ensures you have enough material even after accounting for this inherent waste.
Industry norm for sheet material wastage.
The industry norm for common sheet materials with no grain is a 10% to 15% wastage. These no-grain materials include materials like White Melamine, MDF, and Masonite.
You will have a higher wastage factor for grained sheet materials. This increased waste occurs due to several factors related to the necessity of aligning the grain direction—mainly for visual reasons but sometimes also for structural reasons.
The industry norm for grained sheet materials is usually a 20% to 25% wastage. However, grained materials are often made from exotic woods, which can be significantly more expensive than non-grained melamine. When working with expensive exotic woods, you can reduce the waste by putting more effort into the cut plan and how you cut the wood.
Formula for adding a wasteage percentage on to a sheet material area
The formula for adding a wasteage percentage onto a number is as follows:
New number including wasteage % = Original Number × (1 + (Wasteage Percentage ÷ 100))
For example:
Assume you have a total SQM excl Wasteage of 14 with a 15% wasteage.
Your equation would be 14 * (1 + (15/100)) = 14*1.15 = 16.1
Applying this to all the material types used in your project would give you a list that would look something like the following:
| Material Type | Total SQM Excl Wasteage | Wastage % | Total SQM incl Wastage |
| White Melamine 16mm | 14 | 15% | 16.1 |
| Maple 16mm | 5 | 25% | 6.25 |
| etc. |
Step 6 – Estimating Total Sheet Materials Needed
The final step is to calculate the number of supplied sheets needed. Find out the standard supplier sizes of the sheets for the materials you’re using. Common sheet sizes include:
- 2440 mm x 1220 mm (approximately 2.9768 m²)
- 2750 mm x 1830 mm (approximately 5.0325 m²)
Some suppliers offer custom sizes; confirm with your supplier what sizes they supply their sheets in.
Get the square meterage of the supplied sheet size
Area per Sheet (m²) = Sheet Length (m) × Sheet Width (m)
- Sheet Length (m) = Sheet Length (mm) ÷ 1,000
- Sheet Width (m) = Sheet Width (mm) ÷ 1,000
If the sheet size is 2400 mm x 1220 mm:
- Sheet Length = 2440 ÷ 1,000 = 2.44m
- Sheet Width = 1220 ÷ 1,000 = 1.22m
Area per Supplied Sheet Size = 2.44m × 1.22m = 2.9768m²
Divide square meterage of supplied sheet size by square meterage of sheet material needed for project
Then, calculate the number of sheets needed. You already have the total square meterage required for each material type in your project. All you need to do is divide the total SQM of each sheet material type needed in your project by the area per supplied sheet size and then round up.
Number of Sheets = (Total SQM Required / Area per Sheet) Rounded Up
Example:
With our White Melamine 16mm we said we needed 16.1 m² of material (which included our 15% wastage). We can only order White Melamine 16mm in 2400mm x 1200 sheets. That means the total number of sheets we would need to order would be:
16.1m²/ 2.9768m² per sheet ≈ 5.4 sheets
Since you cannot buy fractional sheets you need to round up to the next whole number since sheets are sold whole.
Total Sheets to Purchase = Round Up(5.4) = 6 sheets
That means we would need 6 sheets of 2440 x 1220 White Melamine 16mm for this project. You repeat this calculation for each sheet material type used in your project. And there you have it. This is the end-to-end cabinet sheet material estimation process you need to follow. You now have an accurate sheet material estimate for this project.
How do you make the cabinet sheet material estimation process easier?
If you find any of the above cultist estimation approaches challenging, no worries! You can streamline your estimation process by using Cutlist Optimization software which will do these calculations automatically for you.
MaxCut is one of the leading optimization software packages designed specifically for accurate cultist estimation for cabinets. It streamlines the calculations needed for any cabinetry project. With MaxCut, you can quickly and accurately determine the materials required for a project, saving you time and reducing waste. MaxCut has a free community edition that can perform all of the above.
Estimating the materials needed for cabinet building requires accuracy, and it’s an important skill that helps professional cabinet makers plan well. Find out more about how MaxCut can support your cost and profit calculations, or explore MaxCut’s job costing features to see how they can bring accuracy and confidence to your estimation process.