Question

Each gallon of paint covers 200 square feet. I have to paint one side of a wall that is 12 meters tall and 80 meters long. If a foot is approximately 0.3084 meters, then what is the smallest whole number of gallons I can buy and have enough paint to cover the whole wall

Answer 1

1 ft ≈ 0.3048 m

1 ft2 ≈ 0.09290304 m2

200 ft2 ≈ 18.580608 m2

Explanation:

The total surface area to paint = 12 m * 80 m = 960 square meters

1 ft ≈ 0.3048 m

1 ft2 ≈ 0.09290304 m2

200 ft2 ≈ 18.580608 m2

And so one gallon of paint covers about 18.581 square meters.

960 m2 / ( 18.581 m2 per gallon) ≈ 51.67 gallons

So 51 gallons would not be enough... it would take 52 gallons of paint to cover the wall.