Brick Calculator

Tally the bricks a wall takes with the mortar joint counted, not just the brick face.

The area

The wall

The face of the wall as you stand in front of it, not a floor plan. Measure each face separately on a wall that turns a corner, and add the answers together.
In feet. Anything measured in inches divides by twelve, so 30 inches is 2.5 feet.

Deductions

A standard interior door is roughly three feet by seven. Doorways without a door still come off the wall area, so count those too.
An average is used rather than exact sizes. With unusually large windows, measure them and treat the total as extra doors instead.

What you are buying

The wall area one brick covers including its share of the mortar joint, not the size of the brick face. BIA Technical Note 10 puts modular brick at 675 per 100 square feet with a 3/8 inch joint, which is the 0.148 here.
The price of a single brick. Brick is usually quoted per thousand, so divide before entering. Mortar, wall ties, lintels and delivery are not counted here.
Ten percent covers a straightforward job. It goes on breakage in transit and on cuts at openings, corners and the end of a course, and a part pallet is rarely worth returning. 10.00%
What to buy
1,078 bricks
9%
is spare
Surface to cover 145 sq ft
Waste allowance 14.5 sq ft
Material must cover 159.5 sq ft
Measured area
160 sq ft
After deductions
145 sq ft

The detail

Doors and windows 15 sq ft
Spare once finished 14.54 sq ft
Material cost $809

Every figure here is a planning estimate, not a professional takeoff. Yields, waste factors and code requirements vary by product, supplier and jurisdiction, so confirm quantities against the manufacturer’s data and your local building department before you order.

Generated by Mathterial

A brick takes up more space in a wall than it does in your hand, and every order that ignores the difference comes in wrong. This brick calculator counts the mortar joint as part of the brick, because that is how a wall is actually built.

The joint is a quarter of your order

A standard modular brick has a face of 7 5/8 by 2 1/4 inches. Laid with a 3/8 inch joint, the space each one occupies is 8 by 2 2/3, or 0.148 square feet. That is 6.75 bricks per square foot, and it is where this page starts.

Measure the brick alone and you get 0.119 square feet, or 8.39 per square foot. On a 20 by 8 foot wall with one window, that is the difference between:

  • Counting the joint: 1,078 bricks, about $809.
  • Ignoring it: 1,340 bricks, about $1,005.

That is 24% over, roughly a quarter of the order and nearly $200 on a single garden wall. Scale it to a house elevation and it becomes a pallet you did not need.

Enter the wall, not a floor plan

The two measurements above are wall length and wall height: the face of the wall as you stand in front of it. A wall that turns a corner is easier to treat as two faces measured separately and added together.

Openings come off at about 21 square feet for a door and 15 for a window, and unlike paint, this deduction is worth making. Each window on that wall is roughly 111 bricks, about $83, so a wall with three or four of them will be badly over-ordered if you skip it.

Brick size changes everything

Modular is the default, not the only option, and larger units cover the same wall with far fewer pieces and far less laying time. On that same 20 by 8 wall:

  • Modular, 6.75 per square foot: 1,078 bricks.
  • Queen, 5.50 per square foot: 878.
  • King, 4.55 per square foot: 726.
  • Utility, 3.00 per square foot: 479.

Those rates come from the Brick Industry Association, Technical Note 10. Modular and utility are fixed sizes and the figures are exact. Queen and king are not: BIA defines both as size ranges, so a queen runs 5.50 to 5.76 per square foot and a king 4.55 to 4.80 depending on whose brick you buy. Measure the one in front of you before ordering a thousand of them.

Take the face dimensions off your own product, add 3/8 inch to each, multiply and divide by 144. Enter that as the coverage and the count follows.

Order the breakage in, and then keep it. Ten percent is the usual allowance and it is not really waste. Some goes on cuts at openings and corners, some on handling. What is left over matters most: brick from a later firing will not match, so the ones you keep on a pallet at the back are the ones that repair this wall in five years.

What this page does not count

Mortar, ties, lintels and reinforcement are separate quantities. As a planning figure, expect roughly 7 bags of 70 lb masonry cement and 0.6 cubic yards of sand per 1,000 bricks, mixed on site. Quikrete rates one bag with 240 pounds of sand at 144 standard bricks, which is where the 7 comes from, and the sand calculator will convert the sand to a delivery. Buy pre-blended mortar instead and the number is not close: Mason Mix lays 37 bricks to an 80 lb bag, so the same 1,000 bricks take 28 bags and no separate sand at all. The two products are four times apart, so check which one you are pricing.

A brick wall also needs a footing under it, sized and taken below the frost line, which the concrete calculator works out.

Brick calculator FAQ

How many bricks per square foot?

About 6.75 for a standard modular brick laid with a 3/8 inch mortar joint, since each one occupies 0.148 square feet. Counting the brick without its joint gives 8.39 per square foot and over-orders by roughly a quarter.

How many bricks do I need for a 20 by 8 foot wall?

About 1,078 modular bricks including a 10% allowance and one window taken off. Larger units need far fewer: the same wall takes 878 queen, 726 king or 479 utility bricks.

Does the mortar joint count in a brick calculation?

Yes, and it is the single biggest source of error. A modular brick faces 7 5/8 by 2 1/4 inches but occupies 8 by 2 2/3 once laid with a 3/8 inch joint. Ignoring that overstates an order by about 24%.

How much extra brick should I order?

Ten percent covers cuts at openings and corners plus handling breakage. Keep the surplus rather than returning it, because brick from a later firing will not match the wall for future repairs.