How do I roughly cut linoleum to room width?

Question

So far I had to replace linoleum twice and each time it was a room of something like slightly-more-than 3 meters by slightly-less-than 3 meters.

Linoleum is usually cut to length at a shop and then rolled up. Of course there's only a set of typical widths - and 3 meters is among those. So if a room is 3.2 meters by 2.8 meters one has to buy 3.2 meters of linoleum that is 3 meters wide and the roll is too wide for the room and won't unroll along the longer wall - it simply gets stuck. Unrolling it along the shorter wall introduces a new problem - rotating such a huge sheet without tearing it looks risky.

One solution is to cut the roll before bringing it into the room and unrolling. So far I used a plain old wood saber saw. Cuts well, rather fast and the cut is clean enough, but this just feels dumb - as if I was doing something completely wrong.

What other ways are there to conveniently cut a huge piece of linoleum to width before unrolling it?

Answer 1

Instead of trying to work with the flooring in a cramped space, I use a roll of craft paper and sticky tape to make a template of the room. Start in the center of the room, lightly stick a strip to the ground, and cut it at the edges of the room. You get a cleaner edge by going a little past the edge, then folding the cut edge back and sticking it down with the tape. Keep sticking more strips to the template until you cover the entire room.

While you're doing that, lay the flooring out somewhere that you do have the space to work. When it's ready, put the template on top of it, and cut around the edges. Regular scissors work well for vinyl flooring, and I know I've installed real linoleum, but can't recall if scissors were OK or if I had to use something more heavy duty like tin snips. Now that it's cut to size, you can easily carry it to where you need it and unroll it.