Tomás wants to tile a rectangular floor with square
tiles that measure 12 inches on a side. The floor
measures 10 feet 6 inches long by 8 feet 6 inches wide.
If he is able to cut the tiles without waste, what is the
minimum whole number of tiles Tomás needs to
completely cover the floor?
First, we find the area of the floor in square inches. Make sure to convert from feet to inches (1 ft = 12 inches).
Area=126⋅102=12,852 in2
Each tile is 12⋅12=144 in2
If we can cut tiles without waste, we can simply divide the total area by the area of each tile:
14412,852=89.25
We will need at least 90 tiles.