Buildy Buddy

When to Use This Calculator

Use the Moulding Cut Optimizer whenever you are buying linear moulding — baseboard, chair rail, shoe moulding, casing, or crown — and want to know the exact number of stock pieces to purchase before heading to the store. It is particularly valuable for large projects with many rooms where eyeballing quantities leads to expensive return trips or leftover material you cannot use.

How It Works

The optimizer uses a bin-packing algorithm to arrange your required cut lengths onto full stock pieces with minimal leftover waste. It accounts for your saw's kerf width so each cut consumes the right amount of material, and it produces a visual cut plan showing exactly where to make each cut on every stock piece. The waste percentage for each piece is displayed so you can quickly evaluate whether a different stock length might save money.

Tips for Best Results

• Enter all cuts for the entire job at once rather than room by room — the optimizer produces better results with a larger cut list.
• If you have usable offcuts from a previous project, try reducing a stock piece length to match the offcut and add it to the list.
• Compare results using both 8-foot and longer stock lengths. Sometimes fewer long pieces cost less overall, even at a higher per-foot price.
• Account for inside and outside corners — mitered corners add a small amount of length, while coped joints require a bit of extra material for the cope cut.