Brick Calculator - Bricks, Mortar Bags, Ties & Cost

How to use it

1. List the walls. One row per run: length and height in their own feet and inches boxes, and a count if several walls are the same size. The fields accept a comma or a period as the decimal mark, so a browser set to French or Spanish shows the same number you typed.
2. Take the openings out. Each wall has stepper buttons for an entry door at 3'0" by 6'8", a 3 by 5 window, a 3 by 4 window and a 16 by 7 garage door, plus one custom size in feet and inches. Tap the plus and the area comes off the wall immediately. If the row has a count, the openings repeat with it, because two identical walls each have their own window.
3. Pick the brick, or measure the one in your hand. Ten US sizes are preset with their specified dimensions and their coverage figure. If you do not know which one you have, type the length and the height off a tape into the two identify boxes and the tool names the nearest match and offers to set it. Override anything it gets wrong.
4. Set the joint width if yours is not the standard 3/8 in. It changes the mortar per brick, and on a custom size it changes the coverage as well, because the module is the brick plus one joint in each direction.
5. Choose the bond. Running bond is the default and the only one most houses use. Common, Flemish and English put header bricks in the wall, and a header shows a 4 in face where a stretcher shows 8, so the wall eats 17, 33 or 50 percent more brick. The drawing changes with it, so you can check the pattern is the one you meant.
6. Set the waste. Five percent is the working default for straight runs, 10 percent once there are corners, cuts around openings or a soldier course, and 15 percent for curved work or reclaimed brick you have to sort. Waste is applied once, on the project total, not wall by wall.
7. Say how you are buying mortar. Premix bags is the default at 37 modular bricks per 80 lb bag, which is QUIKRETE's own rating and deliberately far below what the geometry suggests. Switch to masonry cement plus sand for the way a mason orders a real job: 7 bags of cement and a cubic yard of sand per 1,000 bricks.
8. Turn ties on for a veneer wall. A brick veneer is carried by the wall behind it and tied back to it, and the count comes off IRC R703.8.4.1 at one tie per 2.67 sq ft. The seismic and high wind toggle tightens that to one per 2.0 sq ft. Confirm both with your building department before you order.
9. Check the load against your own truck. The weight line adds brick plus mortar plus sand and divides by the payload you type in, which is the number on the sticker inside your driver's door, not the number on the brochure. A modest veneer wall is nearly four tons, so the honest answer is usually delivery.
10. Edit the cost ledger to your own quotes. Brick priced each or per thousand, mortar per bag, sand per yard, ties each, and an optional delivery fee. The total divided by the wall area gives cost per square foot, which is the figure to hold a mason's bid against.

At a glance

• 24 ft x 9 ft veneer wall, one door and two windows, modular brick: 216 sq ft gross, 50 sq ft of openings, 166 net. 1,121 bricks laid, 1,178 after 5 percent waste, 32 bags of 80 lb mortar, 63 wall ties. The openings alone saved 353 bricks and 10 bags, which is $332 at the seeded prices. The load is 7,508 lb, about 3.75 tons, so it is delivered. Materials $1,118.65, which is $6.74 a square foot.
• 16 in square mailbox column, 48 in tall, modular brick: 64 in of perimeter at an 8 in module is 8 bricks a course, and 48 in at three courses to 8 in is 18 courses, so 144 bricks laid and 152 after waste. Five bags of mortar, no ties because it is freestanding, 1,038 lb which is one careful pickup trip. Materials $148.90. The footing under it belongs to the concrete calculator.
• 200 sq ft of old wall repointed, joints raked 3/4 in deep: Modular brickwork shows 28.2 sq in of joint face per square foot of wall, so 200 sq ft raked 3/4 in deep is 2.45 cu ft of mortar. Add 25 percent working waste and it is 3.06 cu ft, which at 0.7 cu ft an 80 lb bag is 5 bags, about $42.50 of material for a job that will take you several weekends.

How the math works

Every number here comes off one chain, and the whole chain is printed in the result so you can check it on paper. It starts with the coverage figure, which is the thing most people get wrong. A modular brick actually measures 3-5/8 by 2-1/4 by 7-5/8 in, and it is laid to a nominal module of 8 in long by 2-2/3 in high, because modular brickwork runs three courses to 8 in. That module is 21.33 sq in of wall face, and 144 divided by 21.33 is 6.75 bricks per square foot, or 675 per 100 sq ft, which is the figure in BIA Technical Note 10. Do it the obvious way instead, adding a literal 3/8 in joint to the brick to get 8 by 2-5/8, and you get 144 divided by 21, which is 6.86, about 1.6 percent high. The difference is that the coursing module makes the effective bed joint a shade under 7/16 in rather than exactly 3/8, and that is why the industry plans at 6.75. Both numbers are in this tool: the presets use the coursing module, and a custom brick uses the literal joint, which is honest for a unit that has no coursing rule. Area comes next. Each wall is length times height times how many walls like it, summed. Openings are summed the same way and subtracted, clamped so they can never take more than the wall itself, which gives net area. Bricks are net area times the coverage figure, times the bond multiplier, times the number of wythes, and that product is rounded up to a whole brick once, on the project total, so a three wall job never pays for three separate part bricks. Waste multiplies that: 1,121 bricks at 5 percent is 1,177.05, so you order 1,178. The bond multiplier is the count of units in a repeat, not a fudge factor. Running bond is all stretchers, so it is 1.00. Common bond puts a full header course every sixth course, and a header course lays two bricks where a stretcher course lays one, so it is (5 + 2) / 6, which is 1.1667. Flemish alternates stretcher and header along every course, so a 12 in repeat holds 2 bricks against running bond's 1.5, which is 1.3333. English alternates whole stretcher and whole header courses, so it averages (1 + 2) / 2, which is 1.50. Stack bond is 1.00 on count and worse on waste, because nothing staggers and every course gets cut. A column is counted differently, because a column has no face area worth speaking of. Bricks per course is the perimeter divided by the brick plus one joint, rounded up, so a 16 in square column is 64 in of perimeter at an 8 in module, which is 8 bricks. Courses are the height divided by the course module, so 48 in at 2-2/3 in is 18. Multiply and you have 144 bricks. Measuring the perimeter on the outside face slightly overcounts the corners, which is fine: on a column that overcount is your cut allowance. Mortar is solved two ways because people buy it two ways. The geometric volume of the joints around one brick is the module face minus the brick face, through the width of the brick: for a modular at a 3/8 in joint that is (8 x 2.625 - 7.625 x 2.25) x 3.625, which is 13.93 cu in. That number is used to scale, never to plan. An 80 lb bag of mortar mix yields about 0.7 cu ft, which is 1,210 cu in, which would be about 87 modular bricks. QUIKRETE rates the same bag at 37. The difference, more than a factor of two, is bedding waste, droppings off the board, full bed corrections and the mortar that never reaches a joint, and this tool plans at the manufacturer figure of 37 because that is the number that survives contact with a real wall. A 60 lb bag scales to three quarters of it. The masonry cement route uses the trade rule instead: 7 bags of masonry cement and 1 cubic yard of masonry sand per 1,000 modular bricks, both scaled by the joint volume of whatever brick you picked, with the sand rounded up to the quarter yard a supplier will load. Wall ties come off IRC R703.8.4.1, which allows each tie to support at most 2.67 sq ft of wall at spacings no wider than 32 in horizontally and 24 in vertically, tightening to 2.0 sq ft in Seismic Design Category D or where the wind design pressure exceeds 30 psf. So ties are net area divided by 2.67 or 2.0, rounded up: 166 sq ft is 63 ties, or 83 on the tightened spacing. That is prescriptive reference to confirm locally, not a design. Repointing runs a separate chain, because you are filling joints rather than laying brick. The joint face area is 144 minus the coverage figure times the brick's own face, so a modular wall shows 144 minus 6.75 times 17.16, which is 28.2 sq in of joint per square foot of wall. Multiply by the rake depth and divide by 1,728 and you have cubic feet: 200 sq ft raked 3/4 in deep is 2.45 cu ft. Add 25 percent working waste and divide by the bag yield and you have bags. Weight is brick count times weight per brick, plus bag count times bag weight, plus sand at 2,700 lb a cubic yard. Weights are estimates calibrated to Interstate Brick's published 4.19 lb for a modular unit and scaled by specified volume, and every one is an editable field, because the number that matters is your supplier's. Trips are the total divided by the payload you type in. And the cost ledger is nothing but each quantity times a price you set, rounded to the cent row by row so the column always adds to the total printed under it.

1. 1. Use the coursing module, not the brick plus a joint

   A modular brick measures 3-5/8 by 2-1/4 by 7-5/8 in and lays to a nominal module of 8 in by 2-2/3 in, because modular brickwork runs three courses to 8 in. That module is 21.33 sq in, so 144 divided by it is 6.75 bricks per square foot, or 675 per 100 sq ft, which is BIA Technical Note 10's figure. Add a literal 3/8 in joint instead and you get 8 by 2-5/8, which is 6.86, about 1.6 percent high. The coursing module makes the effective bed joint a shade under 7/16 in, and that is the whole explanation. Nobody on page one of the search results tells you this. The presets here use the coursing module; a custom brick uses the literal joint, which is the honest choice for a unit with no coursing rule.

2. 2. Take the walls off, then take the openings out

   Measure each run and give it its own row, with a count for repeats: two identical gable walls are one row with a count of 2, not two rows. Then subtract the openings, which is the step every calculator ranking above this one makes you do by hand. An entry door at 3'0" by 6'8" is 20.0 sq ft, a 3 by 5 window is 15.0, a 3 by 4 window is 12.0 and a 16 by 7 garage door is 112. On a 24 by 9 ft wall, 216 sq ft gross, a door and two windows take out 50 sq ft, so the net is 166. That one subtraction is 353 bricks and 10 bags of mortar, which is $332 at ordinary prices. Openings under about 6 sq ft are usually not worth subtracting, because the cut waste around the jambs is about what you saved.

3. 3. Multiply out the brick and add the waste once

   Bricks are net area times the coverage figure, times the bond multiplier, times the wythes, rounded up to a whole brick once on the project total. On the reference wall: 166 sq ft times 6.75 is 1,120.5, so 1,121 laid. Then waste multiplies that: 1,121 times 1.05 is 1,177.05, so order 1,178. The rounding happens on the total rather than per wall, so a three wall job does not pay for three separate part bricks. Five percent is right for straight runs with square ends; push to 10 percent once there are corners, cuts around openings or a soldier course, and 15 percent for curved work or reclaimed brick. Zero is allowed here and it is always wrong: brick arrives chipped before you cut anything.

4. 4. Let the bond pattern price itself

   A bond multiplier is not a fudge factor, it is a count of units in a repeat. A header brick shows its 4 in end where a stretcher shows its 8 in face, so any pattern with headers in it needs more units for the same wall. Common bond, with a header course every sixth, is (5 + 2) / 6 = 1.1667. Flemish, alternating stretcher and header along every course, holds 2 bricks in a 12 in repeat against running bond's 1.5, so 1.3333. English, alternating whole stretcher and header courses, averages (1 + 2) / 2 = 1.50. Running and stack are both 1.00, but stack bond wants more waste, not more brick, because nothing staggers and every course gets cut to length. Change the bond and the drawing changes with it, which is the quickest way to check you picked the pattern you meant.

5. 5. Count a column by its perimeter, not by its area

   A column has four narrow faces and the area arithmetic falls apart on it, so it gets counted the way it is laid. Bricks per course is the perimeter divided by the brick plus one joint, rounded up: a 16 in square column is 64 in around, which at an 8 in module is exactly 8 bricks. Courses are the height divided by the course module: 48 in at 2-2/3 in is 18. Eight times 18 is 144 bricks laid, 152 after 5 percent waste, and 5 bags of mortar. Measuring the perimeter on the outside face slightly overcounts the corners, where the bricks lap rather than butt, and on a column that overcount is your cut allowance rather than an error worth chasing.

6. 6. Buy mortar off the bag rating, not off the geometry

   The joints around one modular brick hold 13.93 cu in of mortar: the module face of 8 by 2-5/8 minus the brick face of 7-5/8 by 2-1/4, through the 3-5/8 in width. An 80 lb bag yields about 0.7 cu ft, which is 1,210 cu in, so on geometry alone one bag would lay about 87 bricks. QUIKRETE rates the same bag at 37. The gap is more than a factor of two and it is entirely real: mortar on the board that goes off, droppings, the full bed a face brick actually gets rather than the tidy shell in the arithmetic, and joints struck and pointed twice. This tool defaults to 37 and prints both numbers, because planning off the geometric minimum is the fastest way to run out of mortar three courses from the top on a Sunday.

7. 7. Tie a veneer back on the code spacing

   A brick veneer does not hold itself up sideways. It is carried by the wall behind it and tied to it with corrugated or adjustable anchors. IRC R703.8.4.1 allows each tie to support at most 2.67 sq ft of wall, at spacings no wider than 32 in horizontally and 24 in vertically, which puts 63 ties on our 166 sq ft wall. In Seismic Design Category D, or where the wind design pressure exceeds 30 psf, that tightens to one tie per 2.0 sq ft, which is 83 on the same wall. The seismic toggle here switches between them and the drawing marks the grid. Treat both as prescriptive reference and confirm the spacing, the anchor type and the fastener with your building department before you order, because this is a code question and not an arithmetic one.

8. 8. Weigh the order, then price it

   Brick is the heaviest thing most people buy for a home project and the weight decides the day. The reference wall is 1,178 bricks at 4.2 lb, which is 4,948 lb, plus 32 bags of mortar at 80 lb, which is 2,560, so 7,508 lb or 3.75 tons. Against a 1,500 lb payload, the number printed inside your driver's door rather than the one in the brochure, that is six trips, so it is a delivery and a forklift. Then the ledger: brick priced each or per thousand, mortar per bag, sand per yard, ties each, delivery as a flat fee, each row rounded to the cent so the column adds to the total exactly. Divide the total by the net area and you get cost per square foot, which is the only figure worth comparing against a mason's bid.

Worked scenarios, start to finish

Real jobs with the numbers carried all the way through, so you can see how the estimate is built and check your own figures against them.

The judgement calls a pro makes

Decisions the tool cannot make for you, and how someone who does this for a living thinks them through.

Why the coverage figure is 6.75 and not 6.86

Both numbers are defensible and they answer different questions. 6.86 is what you get by adding a literal 3/8 in joint to a 7-5/8 by 2-1/4 in brick: 8 by 2-5/8 is 21 sq in, and 144 over 21 is 6.857. 6.75 is what you get from the coursing module, because modular brickwork is laid three courses to 8 in, which makes the module 8 by 2-2/3 and the effective bed joint a shade under 7/16 in. The industry plans at 6.75, BIA Technical Note 10 publishes 675 per 100 sq ft, and every yard quotes off that. The gap is about 1.6 percent, which on a 1,121 brick wall is 18 bricks, well inside your waste factor either way. Use 6.75 for a named modular brick. The custom size in this tool uses the literal joint, which is right for a unit with no coursing rule of its own.

How much waste to actually carry

Five percent covers a plain run with square ends: transit breakage alone is 2 to 3 percent before you cut anything, and brick chips at the corners in a way block does not. Push to 10 percent as soon as the wall has corners, cut brick around jambs and heads, or a soldier or rowlock course, because a brick cut to fit a jamb leaves an offcut of the wrong length for anything else and cut waste is genuinely lost. Fifteen percent belongs to curved walls, reclaimed brick you have to sort and clean, and any job where you are matching an existing colour and have to reject units. The asymmetry is what decides it: spare brick costs seventy cents each and stacks in the corner of the yard for years, while a second delivery for forty bricks costs a trip fee and a weekend.

Premix bags or masonry cement plus sand

Under about 500 bricks, buy premix. It is one product, it mixes in a wheelbarrow, and the price difference on that quantity is not worth the extra handling. Above roughly 1,000 bricks, cement plus sand wins clearly: 7 bags of masonry cement and a yard of sand is the mix a mason orders for that job, it costs meaningfully less than the equivalent 28 bags of premix, and it lets you mix to the consistency the weather actually calls for. The middle is a judgement call about your mixer and your back. Whichever you pick, keep the mix consistent across the whole wall, because a batch mixed wetter or with more cement in it will cure a different colour and you will see the change in the joints for the life of the wall.

One wythe or two

A brick veneer is one wythe, about 3-5/8 in thick, and it carries nothing but itself. It is tied back to a stud or masonry wall that does the structural work, and there is a drained air space behind it with flashing and weeps at the base. A freestanding garden wall has nothing to tie to, so above about 2 ft it is usually two wythes with a collar joint between them, or a single wythe with piers at intervals. Doubling the wythes doubles the brick, which this tool does, but it also adds the collar joint, and that mortar is not modelled here because its thickness depends on how the wythes are bonded. If you are building freestanding above about 3 ft, that is the point to involve a mason and your building department rather than a calculator.

Matching mortar when you repoint

The instinct is to use the strongest mortar available and it is the wrong instinct. Mortar is meant to be the sacrificial part of the wall: softer than the brick, so movement and salts damage the joint, which can be cut out and replaced, rather than the brick face, which cannot. Most above grade work takes a Type N. A wall built before about 1930 was probably laid in a lime mortar and putting a hard Type S into it will blow the faces off the brick within a few freeze cycles. If you do not know what is there, take a sample of the old mortar to a masonry supplier, or ask a mason to look at it, before you buy five bags of the wrong thing. This is the cheapest material decision on the page and the most expensive one to get wrong.

When to stop calculating and call a mason

This page is sized for a homeowner doing a garden wall, a column, a small veneer or a repoint. Anything structural is a different conversation: brickwork carrying a floor or a roof, a wall over about 4 ft freestanding, a veneer above one storey, anything with a lintel spanning more than a window, anything in a high seismic or high wind zone, and any repair where the wall has moved rather than just weathered. Those need a design, an inspection, or both. The arithmetic on this page does not change in those situations, which is exactly the trap: the quantities look just as confident and the wall still needs an engineer. Use the numbers to price the job and to talk to the mason on equal terms, not to skip the mason.

Whether to have it delivered

Run the arithmetic on your own vehicle rather than on a forum's. Modular brick ships strapped in cubes of around 500, which is roughly 2,100 lb of brick alone, and the payload sticker inside the driver's door of a half ton pickup usually reads 1,500 to 2,000 lb including passengers and fuel. So a cube is a full load at best and generally more than one, and it needs a forklift at both ends. On the reference wall the brick and mortar together are 7,508 lb, which is six trips. Delivery on a boom truck runs $75 to $150 in most markets and the driver sets the cubes where you are laying rather than at the end of the drive. On any order past a few hundred bricks it is not the expensive part of the day.

Common mistakes, and the fix

• × Ordering off the gross wall area and subtracting the openings later, or not at all.

  ✓ Take them out first. A door and two windows on a 24 by 9 ft wall are 50 sq ft, which is 353 bricks and 10 bags of mortar, about $332. This page takes them out with one tap per opening, which is the single thing the calculators ranking above it do not do.

• × Using 7 bricks per square foot for every brick.

  ✓ Seven is a rounded-up modular figure and it is only close for a modular. A queen is 5.76 per square foot, a king 4.8, a norman 4.5 and a utility 3.0. Using 7 on a norman wall orders more than half again as many bricks as you need. Pick the size, or measure the brick and let the tool name it.

• × Buying mortar off the geometric joint volume instead of the bag rating.

  ✓ The joints around a modular brick hold 13.93 cu in, so an 80 lb bag yielding 0.7 cu ft looks like 87 bricks. QUIKRETE rates the same bag at 37, and that is the number that survives a real wall: the rest is bedding waste, droppings and full bed corrections. Plan at 37 and keep a spare bag.

• × Ignoring what the order weighs.

  ✓ A modest veneer wall is 7,508 lb, or 3.75 tons, and a cube of about 500 modular bricks is roughly 2,100 lb on its own. That is past what a half ton pickup is rated to carry, so it is a delivery and a forklift. Set your own payload from the sticker inside the door and let the trips line tell you.

• × Reusing concrete block figures for brick, or the reverse.

  ✓ They are different modules and different mortar. Block lays 1.125 units per square foot on an 8 by 16 in module and covers about 12 blocks per 80 lb bag. Modular brick is 6.75 per square foot and 37 per bag. Use the concrete block calculator for CMU and this page for clay brick, and never carry a figure across.

• × Forgetting the wall ties on a veneer.

  ✓ A veneer is carried by the wall behind it. IRC R703.8.4.1 puts one tie on every 2.67 sq ft, no more than 32 in apart horizontally and 24 in vertically, which is 63 ties on a 166 sq ft wall, and 83 in Seismic Design Category D or over 30 psf wind pressure. They cost about $0.35 each. Confirm the spacing and the anchor type locally before you order.

• × Repointing an old soft-brick wall with a modern high strength mortar.

  ✓ Match what is there, usually a Type N above grade and often a lime mortar on anything pre-1930. Mortar is meant to be softer than the brick so the joint takes the damage instead of the face. A hard mortar in a soft wall spalls the brick faces within a few freeze cycles and the damage is not repairable.

• × Assuming a patio takes the same brick and the same math.

  ✓ It does not. A flat-laid paving brick is a true 4 by 8 in face, so 4.5 to a square foot laid flat, and it is normally set in sand over a compacted base with no mortar at all. Size the base with the gravel calculator, and use this page only for mortared vertical brickwork.

Material and unit specifics

The ten US sizes, and what each one covers

Specified size, then the nominal module, then bricks per square foot. Modular 3-5/8 by 2-1/4 by 7-5/8 on an 8 by 2-2/3 module, 6.75. Standard 3-5/8 by 2-1/4 by 8 on 8-3/8 by 2-5/8, 6.55. Engineer modular 3-5/8 by 2-13/16 by 7-5/8 on 8 by 3.2, 5.63. Closure modular 3-5/8 by 3-5/8 by 7-5/8 on 8 by 4, 4.50. Roman 3-5/8 by 1-5/8 by 11-5/8 on 12 by 2, 6.00. Norman 3-5/8 by 2-1/4 by 11-5/8 on 12 by 2-2/3, 4.50. Engineer norman 3-5/8 by 2-13/16 by 11-5/8 on 12 by 3.2, 3.75. Utility 3-5/8 by 3-5/8 by 11-5/8 on 12 by 4, 3.00. King about 2-3/4 by 2-5/8 by 9-5/8 on 10 by 3, 4.80. Queen about 3-1/8 by 2-3/4 by 7-5/8 on 8 by 3-1/8, 5.76. King and queen vary by region, some queens running 9-5/8 in long, so measure the brick you are actually buying.

What a brick weighs

A modular runs about 4.2 lb, calibrated to Interstate Brick's published 4.19 lb, and the other sizes scale by their specified volume: standard 4.4, engineer modular 5.3, closure modular 6.8, roman 4.6, norman 6.4, engineer norman 8.0, utility 10.3, king 4.7, queen 4.4. These are dry weights for solid-through face brick with the usual core holes, and a hand-moulded or a paving brick will run heavier. Every one of them is an editable field here, because the number that matters for your haul is on your supplier's spec sheet, not in a table.

Cubes, straps and how brick is priced

Brick ships strapped in cubes, and a modular cube is commonly about 500 units, though 480, 500 and 528 all ship depending on the plant and the size. That is roughly 2,100 lb for modular, chosen so a forklift and a flatbed can handle it. It matters because the cube is the unit a yard prices and loads in: a 1,178 brick order is about two and a half cubes, so you are either paying to break a cube or rounding up to three. Yards often quote per thousand rather than each, which is why the price field here accepts both. Common clay modular runs roughly $600 to $900 per thousand, so $0.60 to $0.90 each, with the $0.70 default sitting mid range.

Type N and Type S mortar

Type N is the general purpose mix, around 750 psi, and it is what most above grade brickwork wants: garden walls, veneer, chimneys above the roof line. Being softer than the brick is the feature, because cracking then runs through the repointable joint instead of the brick face. Type S is around 1,800 psi, bonds better and takes lateral load and moisture, so it is the choice at or below grade, for foundation walls, retaining stems and structural work. Both come premixed in 80 and 60 lb bags at similar money, so this is a specification decision rather than a budget one. Type M is stronger again and rarely right for house work. Older walls, roughly pre-1930, were laid in lime mortar and want lime on repair.

The mortar honesty gap, published

This is the number this page exists to be honest about. The joints around one modular brick hold 13.93 cu in of mortar, so 37 bricks place 515 cu in, which is 0.30 cu ft. An 80 lb bag of mortar mix yields about 0.7 cu ft wet. On geometry, then, one bag should lay about 87 bricks, and even at the low end of published yields, 0.6 cu ft, it would lay 74. QUIKRETE's Mortar Mix No. 1102 data sheet rates the same bag at up to 37 standard bricks. The manufacturer is not being conservative for the sake of it: the missing volume is real mortar that never ends up in a joint. It is bedding waste, mortar that goes off on the board, droppings down the face of the wall, the full bed a face brick actually gets rather than the tidy shell in the arithmetic, and joints pointed twice. Plan at 37, or at whatever your own bag says, and treat the geometric figure as a check rather than a budget.

Wall ties, and what the code actually says

IRC R703.8.4.1 gives the prescriptive rule for anchored brick veneer on a wood or steel framed wall: corrugated sheet metal ties at least 22 gauge by 7/8 in wide, or adjustable two-piece anchors, one for each 2.67 sq ft of wall, spaced no more than 32 in apart horizontally and 24 in vertically, and within 12 in of openings over 16 in wide. In Seismic Design Category D and above, or where the wind design pressure exceeds 30 psf, the spacing tightens to one tie per 2.0 sq ft. Ties fasten through the sheathing into the studs with a nail or screw long enough to get 1-1/2 in of penetration, and they get bent into the bed joint rather than sitting in the air space. Ties cost about $0.30 to $0.45 each, so the whole line item on a wall like the reference one is around $22, which is a strange place to economise. All of this is prescriptive reference to confirm with your building department.

Masonry sand, and what a yard weighs

Mortar sand is a washed, fine, well graded sand, not the sharp concrete sand and definitely not play sand. The trade rule is 7 bags of masonry cement and a cubic yard of sand per 1,000 modular bricks, which is why the cement route here rounds sand up to the quarter yard a supplier will actually load. A cubic yard of damp masonry sand runs about 2,700 lb, so that yard on its own is more than a half ton pickup should carry, and it usually arrives on the same delivery as the brick. Bagged sand is available at around 60 lb a bag if the job is small, but at a cubic yard you are looking at 45 bags, and bulk is both cheaper and less work.

What brick work costs, materials against installed

Materials on the reference veneer wall come to $1,118.65 for 166 sq ft, which is $6.74 a square foot: brick at $0.70 each, mortar at $8.50 a bag, ties at $0.35. Materials on brickwork generally land between $5 and $12 a square foot depending on the brick, since a common wirecut runs $0.55 and a handmade or an imported unit can be $1.50 or more. Installed is a different order of magnitude: professional brick veneer typically runs $10 to $30 a square foot all in, because laying brick is slow, heavy, skilled work and the labour is most of the bill. The gap between the two is what your own time is worth on the job, and that comparison, rather than the brick count, is the decision most people are really making here.

Where this page stops and its neighbours start

This page owns clay brick laid with mortar: veneer, garden walls, columns and repointing. Concrete masonry units, block mortar and grouted cores belong to the concrete block calculator, which has a different module and different mortar coverage. The footing under a garden wall or a column belongs to the concrete calculator, because sizing it depends on your frost depth and soil rather than on brick arithmetic. Measuring an irregular elevation belongs to the square footage calculator. And a flat-laid brick patio is not this page at all: paving brick is a true 4 by 8 in face at 4.5 per square foot, it is normally sand set with no mortar, and its compacted base is the gravel calculator's job. A dedicated paver page is planned.

Reading your result

Read the headline as an order, not a total. The brick count already carries your waste factor, so it is the number you read down the phone to the yard, and the line beside it, what the openings took out, is the thing to check first: if it looks too small, you have probably missed a window. The rows underneath are the same order in the sequence a yard will ask for it, gross area, openings out, net area, brick laid, waste, brick to buy, and every one of them adds up to the one above it exactly, on purpose. The mortar line is the one people get wrong. It is computed from the bag rating rather than the geometry, and the honesty panel next to it shows you both numbers so you can see the size of the difference. If your bag says something other than 37, type that in; the whole page moves with it. The bags are also the material that ruins an afternoon when you run short, so if the count lands just over a whole number, buy the spare. The weight line is a go or no go rather than trivia. It multiplies your own weight per brick by the count, adds the mortar and any sand, and divides by the payload you typed, so if it says six trips, it is telling you your truck cannot legally or safely take this order rather than that delivery would be more convenient. Nearly four tons for one wall of a small addition is not an unusual result, it is the normal result, and pricing the delivery in at the start is cheaper than discovering it on the Saturday. The cost ledger is a planning ledger and nothing more. Every line is a quantity from the geometry times a price you typed, so it is exactly as good as the prices you put in, and it is not a quote from anybody. Its most useful output is the figure at the bottom divided by your net area: materials on brickwork land around $5 to $12 a square foot, while installed veneer runs $10 to $30, so the gap between those two numbers is what your own labour is worth on this job. Finally, treat the tie count and the seismic tightening as prescriptive reference to confirm locally. The arithmetic behind them is fixed and the code that governs them is not: your jurisdiction, your seismic design category and your wind design pressure decide the spacing, and a building department will answer that question in one phone call.

Limitations

• This is a materials planning estimate, not a quote and not an engineering design. Tie spacing, the seismic tightening and anything structural are prescriptive reference from IRC R703.8.4.1 to confirm with your local building department or the engineer on your plans.
• Clay brick laid with mortar only. Concrete masonry units, block mortar and grouted cores belong to the concrete block calculator, and this page will get the module and the mortar coverage wrong for them.
• Flat-laid brick paving is out of scope and always will be. Paving brick is a different unit at 4.5 per square foot laid flat, it is normally sand set with no mortar, and its base is a gravel calculation. The FAQ answers it and the gravel calculator sizes the base.
• Footings, flashing, weep holes, the drained air space behind a veneer, lintels, control joints, damp proof courses and anchorage to the frame are all out of scope beyond the cross-links. A veneer without flashing and weeps at its base is a wall that holds water.
• Mortar coverage assumes a standard 3/8 in joint laid by hand. A wider joint, a full bed on a solid unit, a hot dry day or a hand-moulded brick with a rough face all use more, which is why the manufacturer figure rather than the geometric minimum is the default.
• A two wythe wall also has a collar joint between the wythes, and that mortar is not modelled, because its thickness depends on how the wythes are bonded. Ask your mason to allow for it.
• Brick weights, cube counts and every price are typical US figures for 2026 and editable for exactly that reason. King and queen dimensions in particular vary by region, so measure the brick you are buying.
• Openings are subtracted by area and drawn spaced evenly along the wall they belong to. The tool does not know where you intend to put them and it does not size a lintel, which depends on the span and what is carried above it.
• Imperial units throughout, in feet, inches, square feet, cubic feet and pounds, consistent with the rest of the site.

Frequently asked questions

How many bricks do I need per square foot?

For a standard modular brick, 6.75 per square foot of wall, or 675 per 100 sq ft before waste. That comes from the coursing module rather than the brick: a modular measures 7-5/8 by 2-1/4 in and lays three courses to 8 in, so the module is 8 by 2-2/3 in, which is 21.33 sq in, and 144 divided by that is 6.75. The rounded-up figure of 7 per square foot that gets quoted everywhere is close enough for a modular and wrong for everything else. Queen is 5.76 per square foot, king 4.8, standard 6.55, roman 6.00, norman and closure modular both 4.50, engineer norman 3.75 and utility 3.00. Add 5 percent waste for a plain wall and 10 percent once there are openings and corners, so 100 sq ft of plain modular wall is 675 laid and 709 ordered.

How many bricks do I need for 100 square feet?

675 modular bricks laid, and 709 ordered once you carry 5 percent waste. Push the waste to 10 percent, which is the honest figure for a wall with a door and a couple of windows in it, and it is 743. For other sizes the laid count is 655 for a standard, 576 for a queen, 480 for a king, 450 for a norman or a closure modular, 375 for an engineer norman and 300 for a utility. Those are net figures for the wall face you are actually building, so subtract your openings before you multiply rather than after: on a 216 sq ft elevation, one door and two windows take out 50 sq ft, which is 353 bricks you do not have to buy.

How much area will 1,000 bricks cover?

About 148 sq ft of wall in modular brick, since 1,000 divided by 6.75 is 148.1. That is roughly a 16 by 9 ft elevation. In other sizes the same thousand bricks cover 153 sq ft of standard, 174 of queen, 208 of king, 222 of norman or closure modular, 267 of engineer norman and 333 of utility. Remember it is a laid figure: order a thousand and you will not lay a thousand, because breakage and cuts take 5 to 10 percent of them. A thousand modular bricks is about two cubes and weighs roughly 4,200 lb, which is a delivery rather than a pickup load, and it needs about 28 bags of 80 lb mortar to lay.

How many bags of mortar do I need per 1,000 bricks?

About 28 bags of 80 lb premixed mortar, working at QUIKRETE's rating of 37 modular bricks per bag. In 60 lb bags it is 37, since a 60 lb bag lays about three quarters as many. If you would rather mix your own, the trade rule is 7 bags of masonry cement plus 1 cubic yard of masonry sand per 1,000 modular bricks, and that yard of sand weighs about 2,700 lb. The number moves with the brick: a thirstier unit with more joint around it lays fewer per bag, so a utility brick is nearer 24 to a bag and a queen nearer 41. Do not plan off the geometry. The joints around a modular brick hold 13.93 cu in, so a bag yielding 0.7 cu ft looks like 87 bricks, but the manufacturer says 37, and the difference is bedding waste and droppings that never reach a joint.

How many wall ties do I need for a brick veneer?

One for every 2.67 sq ft of wall under the standard prescriptive rule, so a 166 sq ft wall takes 63 ties. IRC R703.8.4.1 also caps the spacing at 32 in horizontally and 24 in vertically, and wants a tie within 12 in of any opening wider than 16 in. In Seismic Design Category D and above, or where the wind design pressure exceeds 30 psf, that tightens to one tie per 2.0 sq ft, which puts 83 ties on the same wall. Corrugated ties need to be at least 22 gauge by 7/8 in wide and fastened into the studs rather than into the sheathing alone. At $0.30 to $0.45 each this is a $20 line item on a typical wall, so there is no reason to be short. Treat all of that as prescriptive reference and confirm the spacing and the anchor type with your building department.

How many bricks do I need for a patio?

A patio is a different unit and a different calculation, and this page is not the right one for it. Paving brick laid flat presents a true 4 by 8 in face, which is 4.5 bricks per square foot with tight sand-swept joints, so a 12 by 16 ft patio at 192 sq ft is about 864 pavers plus 5 to 10 percent for cuts. Face brick from a wall is not paving brick: it is not rated for freeze-thaw underfoot and it will spall. Patio brick is normally sand set over a compacted base with no mortar at all, so the material that actually decides the job is the base, which is 4 to 6 in of compacted crushed stone under an inch of bedding sand. Size that with the gravel calculator. A dedicated paver calculator is planned. If you are buying thin adhered brick instead, that is sold as flats by the square foot plus corners by the linear foot, so use the coverage printed on the box.

How much does a brick wall cost?

For materials, plan on $5 to $12 per square foot of wall depending on the brick. The 24 by 9 ft veneer wall worked through on this page comes to $1,118.65 for 166 sq ft, which is $6.74 a square foot: $824.60 of brick at $0.70 each, $272 of mortar and $22.05 of ties. Common wirecut brick runs roughly $600 to $900 per thousand, while handmade, tumbled or imported units can be $1,500 per thousand or more. Installed is a different order of magnitude: professional brick veneer typically runs $10 to $30 per square foot all in, because laying brick is slow, skilled work and labour is most of the bill. The gap between those two numbers, roughly $5 to $20 a square foot, is what your own time is worth on the job, and that is the comparison the cost ledger here is built to let you make.

How many bricks are in a pallet or a cube?

For modular face brick, about 500, and it is genuinely not a constant: 480, 500 and 528 all ship depending on the plant and the size, and larger units come fewer to a cube. A modular cube at 500 is roughly 2,100 lb, which is sized so a forklift and a flatbed can handle it and which is already past what a half ton pickup should carry. The reason to confirm it before ordering is that the cube is the unit the yard prices and loads in: an order of 1,178 bricks is about two and a half cubes, so you are either paying to break a cube or rounding up to three, and those cost different money and arrive on different trucks. Ask the yard, then set the price per thousand in the ledger here to match what they quote.