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The Brick Calculator works out how many bricks a wall needs with the wall-area method of Brick Industry Association Technical Note 10: multiply the net wall area — length × height, less windows and doors — by the bricks per square foot for your brick size and joint from TN 10, Table 4, and add at least 5% for breakage and waste. Modular brick (3⅝ × 2¼ × 7⅝ in) laid with 3/8 in joints runs 675 per 100 sq ft, or 6.75 per square foot; queen brick 5.5, king 4.55, Norman 4.5, utility 3.0 and non-modular standard brick 6.55. Mortar comes from the same table — 5.5 cu ft per 100 sq ft for modular brick at 3/8 in — plus 15–25% waste, and it is shown as 80 lb bags of premixed mortar (QUIKRETE: up to 37 standard bricks per bag) or as masonry cement and sand. Brick veneer also needs one tie for every 2.67 sq ft of wall under IRC R703.8.4.1. A 30 × 9 ft wall with two windows has 240 sq ft: 1,620 modular bricks, 1,701 with 5%, about 15.8 cu ft of mortar with waste and 90 ties.
Brick is estimated by the wall-area method of Brick Industry Association Technical Note 10: net wall area × bricks per square foot, plus at least 5% for breakage and waste. Mortar comes from the same table, plus 15–25% waste. Anchored veneer needs one tie per 2.67 sq ft of wall (IRC R703.8.4.1), at most 32 in apart horizontally and 24 in vertically.
| Brick | Size (W × H × L) | Bricks per sq ft | Bricks per 100 sq ft | Mortar per 100 sq ft |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Modular | 3⅝ × 2¼ × 7⅝ in | 6.75 | 675 | 5.5 cu ft |
| Engineer modular | 3⅝ × 2¾ × 7⅝ in | 5.63 | 563 | 4.8 cu ft |
| Closure modular | 3⅝ × 3⅝ × 7⅝ in | 4.50 | 450 | 4.1 cu ft |
| Roman | 3⅝ × 1⅝ × 11⅝ in | 6.00 | 600 | 6.4 cu ft |
| Norman | 3⅝ × 2¼ × 11⅝ in | 4.50 | 450 | 5.1 cu ft |
| Engineer Norman | 3⅝ × 2¾ × 11⅝ in | 3.75 | 375 | 4.4 cu ft |
| Utility | 3⅝ × 3⅝ × 11⅝ in | 3.00 | 300 | 3.7 cu ft |
| Queen | 2¾ × 2¾ × 7⅝ in | 5.50 | 550 | 6.7 cu ft |
| King | 2¾ × 2⅝ × 9⅝ in | 4.55 | 455 | 6.5 cu ft |
| Standard (non-modular) | 3⅝ × 2¼ × 8 in | 6.55 | 655 | 9.5 cu ft |
6.75 modular bricks (3⅝ × 2¼ × 7⅝ in) with 3/8 in joints — 675 per 100 sq ft in Brick Industry Association Technical Note 10, Table 4. Other sizes: engineer modular 5.63, Norman 4.5, queen 5.5, king 4.55, utility 3.0 and non-modular standard 6.55 per sq ft.
Multiply the wall length by its height, subtract windows and doors, multiply by the bricks per square foot for your size, then add at least 5% for breakage and waste (BIA TN 10). A 30 × 9 ft wall with two windows has 240 sq ft: 1,620 modular bricks, 1,701 with 5%.
BIA Technical Note 10 gives 8.1 cu ft of mortar per 1,000 modular bricks with 3/8 in joints and 10.3 cu ft with 1/2 in joints, before waste; add 15 to 25%. In premixed bags, QUIKRETE Mortar Mix says an 80 lb bag lays up to 37 standard bricks — about 27 bags per 1,000 before waste.
IRC R703.8.4.1 lets each anchored-veneer tie support no more than 2.67 sq ft of wall, spaced at most 32 in on centre horizontally and 24 in vertically, with extra ties within 12 in of openings larger than 16 in. Divide the wall area by 2.67: 240 sq ft takes 90 ties.
In the US the most common face brick is the modular brick, specified 3⅝ × 2¼ × 7⅝ in so that with a 3/8 in joint it lays to a nominal 4 × 2⅔ × 8 in — three courses to 8 in. The non-modular "standard" brick is 3⅝ × 2¼ × 8 in (BIA TN 10, Tables 1 and 2).
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