Short definition
Carpet manufactured on a wide loom and sold from a roll — distinct from carpet tiles (modular squares).
Broadloom carpet is carpet manufactured on a wide loom and sold from a roll. The standard roll width in Australia is 3.66 m (12 feet, a legacy of imperial loom widths) or 4 m. The other common format — carpet tiles — comes in modular squares (typically 50 × 50 cm) and is a different installation discipline.
Australian broadloom rolls come in a small handful of widths, and the width choice at ordering time drives every downstream decision. 3.66 m is the dominant residential width, kept for compatibility with legacy imperial-loom stock. 4 m rolls are common on modern residential and commercial ranges. 5 m rolls turn up on some commercial products. Speciality carpets go narrower again (2 m and 2.75 m), and runners are supplied at 0.7–1 m. The dedicated /glossary/broadloom-roll-width entry expands the width considerations in full.
Broadloom vs carpet tiles is the other headline decision. Broadloom is one continuous roll — seams and joins happen where the room is wider than the roll, and cannot be moved after install. Carpet tiles are 50 × 50 cm modular squares — every joint is a seam, but they are all the same size and can be lifted and replaced individually. Broadloom suits open living spaces where a seamless look matters (bedrooms, formal lounges). Tiles suit commercial fitouts where a spill on one tile can be replaced without recarpeting the room.
Broadloom is priced two ways depending on the trade transaction. Retail to the end customer is almost always quoted in square metres of finished floor, with the roll-width geometry hidden inside the wastage allowance. Wholesale from mill to retailer is often quoted in linear metres of roll at the supplied width — a 30 lm roll at 3.66 m width is 109.8 m² of raw carpet before any waste. Both figures matter on a job: the customer sees m², the supplier order goes out in lm. The /calculators/square-metres-to-linear-metres converter handles the switch either direction.
For a flooring takeoff, broadloom raises two questions that hard flooring does not: where do the seams go, and how much wastage does the room geometry force? A 5 m wide room from a 3.66 m roll needs at least one seam and produces a strip of offcut. The same room from a 4 m roll might fit without a seam but with substantial offcut.
Most flooring shops handle the seam-layout calculation outside the takeoff tool — once area and perimeter are measured, a separate roll-width calculation produces the actual roll metres ordered. AreaSum reports the raw area and lets you layer that calculation on top, rather than forcing a fixed roll-width into the takeoff.
Wastage on broadloom is typically higher than on hard flooring (5–15% vs 7–10%) because of roll-width geometry and pattern matching on patterned carpets. Pile-direction matters too — runs in adjoining rooms generally need to point the same way for a uniform look, which can force extra waste at junctions.