Brick Calculator — Bricks, Mortar, Cement & Sand
Bricks, mortar, cement and sand for any wall — IS 1077, UK or US brick sizes.
Wall
Doors and windows to leave out
No openings — the whole wall is brickwork.
Bricks and mortar
Mortar settings
Prices optional
Materials
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About the Brick Calculator — Bricks, Mortar, Cement & Sand
Work out how many bricks a wall needs and how much mortar, cement and sand go with them. Enter the wall's length and height, choose a half-brick, one-brick, one-and-a-half-brick or any other thickness, and leave out the doors and windows. Brick sizes include the IS 1077 modular (190 × 90 × 90 mm) and non-modular (230 × 110 × 70 mm) bricks, the UK standard 215 × 102.5 × 65 mm brick and the common US sizes from the Brick Industry Association — or type your own.
You get the bricks to buy with wastage, bricks per m² and per m³, the wet mortar, the loose dry materials, cement in 50 kg, 25 kg or 94 lb bags and sand in m³, cft, tonnes and brass for a 1:3 to 1:8 mix — plus the material cost if you add prices.
How to use it
- Enter the wall length and height and pick the thickness: half brick (one brick wide), one brick or one and a half bricks.
- Add any doors and windows with their width, height and number — they are left out of the brickwork.
- Choose the brick size, the mortar joint (10 mm is usual; IS 2212 allows bed joints up to 12 mm) and the mortar mix, and check the wastage allowances.
- Add prices for bricks, cement and sand if you want the cost, then copy the result or download it as CSV.
Examples
1,562.5 bricks net → 1,641 with 5% wastage (104.2 per m², 452.9 per m³) · wet mortar 0.683 m³ · cement 4.30 bags (buy 5) · sand 0.895 m³ = 31.6 cft
Dry-volume factor 1.33 and 15% mortar wastage.
10.11 m² net · 526.6 bricks → 553 with 5% wastage · wet mortar 0.180 m³ · cement 1.13 bags · sand 0.235 m³ = 8.31 cft
1 ÷ (0.225 m × 0.075 m) = 59.26 bricks per m²
6.86 bricks per ft² · about 8.1 ft³ of mortar per 1,000 bricks
BIA Technical Note 10 lists 6.75 per ft² because it assumes 3 courses = 8 in, and 8.1 ft³ of mortar per 1,000.
How the bricks are counted
Each brick takes up its own size plus one mortar joint in every direction. A wall face of area A and thickness T therefore holds A × (T + j) ÷ ((L + j) × (W + j) × (H + j)) bricks, where L, W and H are the brick's length, width and height and j is the joint.
For the usual thicknesses that is simply one, two or three bricks' width through the wall: a half-brick wall is one brick wide (T = W), a one-brick wall is two widths plus a joint (T = 2W + j, which equals the brick length for IS and UK bricks — 230 mm, 190 mm or 215 mm) and a one-and-a-half-brick wall is three widths plus two joints. So a half-brick wall of 230 × 110 × 70 mm bricks needs 1 ÷ (0.24 × 0.08) = 52.1 bricks per m², and a one-brick wall twice that, 104.2 per m² or 452.9 per m³.
Doors and windows are subtracted from the wall area before counting. The brick wastage (at least 5% per BIA Technical Note 10) is added last and the total is rounded up.
Mortar, cement and sand
Wet mortar is the wall volume minus the volume of the bricks: for the 5 m × 3 m one-brick wall above, 3.45 m³ − 1,562.5 × 0.001771 m³ = 0.683 m³. Loose cement and sand take up more room than the mortar they make, so the dry volume is the wet volume × a dry-volume factor — 1.27 to 1.33 is the usual range in Indian estimating — plus a mortar wastage allowance for droppings, frog filling and uneven joints (BIA suggests 15–25%).
The dry volume is split in the mix ratio. For 1:6, cement is 1/7 of it and sand 6/7. Cement is converted to kg at 1,440 kg/m³ (IS 875 Part 1) and then to bags; sand is shown in m³, cft (cubic feet), tonnes at your sand density and brass (100 cft).
Standard brick sizes
- India, IS 1077:1992: modular 190 × 90 × 90 mm and 190 × 90 × 40 mm (cl. 6.1.1); non-modular 230 × 110 × 70 mm and 230 × 110 × 30 mm (cl. 6.1.2). With 10 mm joints a modular brick fills 200 × 100 × 100 mm, and IS 2212 calls a modular one-brick wall 20 cm nominal, 19 cm actual.
- UK: 215 × 102.5 × 65 mm; with 10 mm joints each brick fills 225 × 75 mm of wall face.
- US (BIA Technical Note 10): modular 7⅝ × 3⅝ × 2¼ in (nominal 8 × 4 × 2⅔ in), standard 8 × 3⅝ × 2¼ in, Norman 11⅝ × 3⅝ × 2¼ in, queen 7⅝ × 2¾ × 2¾ in, king 9⅝ × 2¾ × 2⅝ in and utility 11⅝ × 3⅝ × 3⅝ in — all with ⅜ in joints. Manufacturers' sizes vary, so measure your bricks if in doubt.
Sources
- IS 1077:1992, Common Burnt Clay Building Bricks — Specification, cl. 6.1 — archive.org
- IS 2212:1991, Brickwork — Code of Practice, cl. 3.1 and 6.4.1 (joints) — archive.org
- Brick Industry Association, Technical Note 10: Dimensioning and Estimating Brick Masonry, Tables 1, 2 and 4 and the waste allowances
- IS 875 (Part 1):1987, Table 1 — cement 1,440 kg/m³, dry sand 1,540–1,600 kg/m³ — archive.org
- UK brick size: Designing Buildings Wiki — Brick
- Dry-volume factor 1.27–1.33: Indian estimating convention, editable
Limitations
- Frogs filled with mortar, broken bricks used as filler, cavity walls, reinforced brickwork and bonds with many headers change the quantities — adjust the wastage to suit.
- The count assumes every joint is the thickness you enter. BIA's tables for modular brick assume 3 courses = 8 in, which gives about 1.6% fewer bricks than uniform ⅜ in joints.
- Mortar follows the Indian dry-volume convention. BIA's rule of thumb is instead that 1 ft³ of loose, damp sand makes about 1 ft³ of mortar; set the factor to suit your practice.
- Brick strength, mortar grade and wall thickness for load-bearing walls are a design decision for your engineer and local code (in India, IS 1905).
Privacy
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Frequently asked questions
How many bricks are in 1 m³ of brickwork?
With 230 × 110 × 70 mm bricks and 10 mm joints, a one-brick (230 mm) wall holds about 453 bricks per m³ — 104 per m² of wall face. With modular 190 × 90 × 90 mm bricks, a 190 mm wall holds 100 per m², about 526 per m³ — or exactly 500 per m³ if you measure the wall at its nominal 200 mm thickness (1 ÷ (0.2 × 0.1 × 0.1)). Add wastage before ordering.
How many bricks are in a square metre?
For a half-brick wall it is 1 ÷ ((length + joint) × (height + joint)): 52.1 for 230 × 70 mm Indian bricks, 59.3 for 215 × 65 mm UK bricks and 50 for 190 × 90 mm modular bricks, all with 10 mm joints. A one-brick wall needs twice as many.
How much cement and sand do I need for 1 m³ of brickwork?
For a one-brick wall of 230 × 110 × 70 mm bricks with 10 mm joints, the wet mortar is about 0.198 m³ per m³ of brickwork. With a dry-volume factor of 1.33 and 15% wastage, a 1:6 mix needs about 1.25 bags (62 kg) of cement and 0.26 m³ of sand per m³.
What is the standard brick size in India?
IS 1077:1992 gives modular bricks of 190 × 90 × 90 mm and 190 × 90 × 40 mm, and also allows non-modular bricks of 230 × 110 × 70 mm and 230 × 110 × 30 mm. With 10 mm joints the modular brick fills 200 × 100 × 100 mm.
Which mortar mix should I use?
Use the mix on your drawings or specification. IS 2212 points to IS 2250 for masonry mortars and to IS 1905 for matching the mortar to the brick strength, and notes that the mortar should preferably be weaker than the bricks so that any cracks stay fine and in the joints. The calculator handles any mix from 1:3 to 1:8.
How thick should the mortar joints be?
About 10 mm. IS 2212:1991 cl. 6.4.1 says no bed joint should be thicker than 12 mm, and that four courses with their three joints should measure four brick heights plus 3 cm for traditional bricks, or 39 cm for modular bricks. US modular brick is laid with ⅜ in (9.5 mm) joints.