Brick Calculator
Determine the Number of Bricks Required
One-brick calculator: You can use this brick calculator to figure out how many bricks you will need to build a wall of a specific size. Half-brick and single-brick thick walls, as well as mortar, are all supported by the Calculator. As a result, you’ll know exactly how much mortar you’ll need to lay your bricks. You may also like to see the Gravel Calculator. Concrete Calculator and Sand Calculator. We also have buyers guides on Building Sand as well as River Sand.
Use this brick calculator to get a rough idea of how many bricks you’ll need to build a wall of a certain size. The calculator works with both half-brick thick walls and single-brick thick walls. It also lets you set the mortar margin. It will also tell you how many cubic feet or cubic meters of mortar you need to lay the bricks.
How To Figure Out How Many Bricks You Need?
First, to figure out how many bricks you need to build an interior or exterior wall, you need to know the size of the wall and the size of a single brick. You can then use our brick calculator to figure out how many bricks you need. You can get these measurements from both the building plan and the manufacturer’s specifications.
Then you need to know how thick the wall needs to be. Half-brick and single-brick are the most common choices. When you say “half-brick” or “single-brick,” you mean that you will stack the bricks with their longest narrow side facing the wall, and when you say “single-brick,” you will stack them with their shorter narrow side facing the wall. In a half-brick wall, the thickness of the wall is equal to the width of the brick. In a single-brick wall, the thickness is equal to the length of the bricks used. Our online brick calculator works with both of these methods.
In either case, the basic way to figure out how many bricks are needed for a wall is to divide the wall’s volume by the volume of a single brick: Number of bricks = wall volume divided by the volume of a single brick
In real life, calculations are more complicated, which is why our calculator lets you enter the thickness of the mortar between the bricks. Most values are between 10 and 13 mm, or half an inch, but this will depend on how you plan to build. Using a wider margin will obviously cut down on the number of bricks needed, but it will also make the wall less strong and require more mortar.
Last, you need to type in how many bricks you think will be wasted. Most of the time, bricks are wasted because they break while being moved, handled, or moved around. Some bricks also have to be cut into pieces to make a good-looking wall. Some of these parts can’t be used, so they have to be thrown away. A good rule of thumb is to plan for 5–10% waste.
How To Figure Out The Number Of Bricks
If you want your wall to be 8 feet tall and 15 feet long, how many bricks with a length of 8 inches (203mm), width of 3-5/8 inches (92mm), and height of 2-1/4 inches (57mm) will you need? First, figure out how much space a single brick takes up by multiplying its length, height, and depth (this is just a volume of a box calculation). In this case, 8 times 3.625% times 2.25 equals 65.25 cubic inches (65-1/4 cu in). Second, figure out how much space the whole brick wall takes up: 8′ x 15′ x 3.625″ = 8′ x 15′ x 0.3′ = 36 cu ft.
Lastly, divide the volume of the wall by the volume of the bricks to get the number of bricks you need: 36 cu ft divided by 65.25 cu in is 36 divided by 0.03776 cu ft, which is 953.39 bricks, rounded up to 954. This calculation doesn’t take into account the space between the bricks, but doing so would make the example harder to understand. Using the above calculator, you can figure out that the wall only needs 777 bricks and 0.4 inches of mortar. When figuring out how many bricks you need, you should buy a few extra to account for waste, which is usually 5–10%.