Quantidade de Azulejos (diagonal)

Calculating diagonal tile layout

The rule is tiles = (room_area · 1.18) / tile_area, rounded up. Laying tiles on the diagonal (45° to the walls) means cutting into every wall edge, which pushes waste up to 15–20% instead of the ~10% you'd see with a straight layout. Say you have a 12 m² floor and 45 cm tiles (0.2025 m²): (12 · 1.18) / 0.2025 works out to about 70 tiles. The diagonal look does two nice things. It makes small rooms feel wider and it forgives walls that aren't perfectly square. The catch is that it's slower to lay and really needs a bricklayer who knows what they're doing.

Applications

You'll see it most in small bathrooms, entryways, balconies, kitchens, and decorative facades. It's also a handy trick for rooms whose corners aren't quite 90°, because the angled cuts blur that variation along the walls. Expect to pay more per square meter, since both the extra cutting time and the wasted tiles add up.

FAQ

Why does diagonal waste more tiles? Every wall edge needs triangular cuts, and those scraps rarely fit anywhere else. With a straight layout the offcut from one row usually finishes the next one, so less goes in the bin.

Should I add 15% or 20%? Stick with 15% for plain rectangular rooms and an experienced installer. Bump it to 20% for L-shaped rooms, lots of obstacles, or large-format tiles, where a single mistake costs you more.

Does it work on walls too? Yes, and the math is identical. Diagonal wall tiles are a classic bathroom look, though the labor runs higher than a plain horizontal layout.