◆ Calculators ◆ Brick Calculator: How Many Bricks You Need
Brick Calculator: How Many Bricks You Need
Work out how many bricks a wall needs from its area and brick size, with the coursing figures sourced and the manufacturer's minimum waste allowance.
Brick Industry Association Technical Note 10 states that "at least 5 percent is added to the net brick quantities delivered to the jobsite" — 5 % is that stated minimum, not an average. A lower value departs from the source's own recommendation.
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How the number is worked out
The steps from input to result
The brick count here comes from a professional coursing table, not from dividing the wall area by a single brick's face area: Brick Industry Association Technical Note 10 gives the number of bricks per 100 sq ft of wall for each named brick format, already accounting for how bricks actually course together with a mortar joint.
The source states that the brick count per 100 sq ft does not change with mortar joint thickness (3/8″ or 1/2″) — only the mortar volume does, which this calculator does not compute. That is why there is no joint-thickness input here.
This calculator deliberately reports only the brick count, not a mortar quantity. The bricks-per-bag-of-mortar rule of thumb the source mentions is one it flags itself as "a very rough estimate" with "an unspecified amount of waste" — once you know how many bricks you need, the existing Mortar Bag Calculator works out the mortar bags for that count from a separate, sourced manufacturer yield.
The formula
Written out, so you can check it by hand
Bricks = round up( area ÷ 100 × bricks per 100 sq ft (brick format) × (1 + waste ÷ 100) )
Worked example
Worked with the preset values
A 100 sq ft wall built with Modular brick (675 bricks per 100 sq ft) and the 5 % waste allowance the source recommends as a minimum: 100 ÷ 100 × 675 = 675 bricks before waste, × 1.05 = 708.75, which rounds up to 709 bricks — a brick is not divisible, so the calculation always rounds up to the next whole brick.
What this calculator does not do
Named, not left out
- 01Only six modular brick formats are covered — Modular, Engineer Modular, Closure Modular, Roman, Norman, and Utility — the ones this calculator can attribute a single, unambiguous brick-per-100-sq-ft figure to from the source table. Non-modular formats (Queen, King, Standard) and other modular formats beyond these six are not offered.
- 02This calculator does not compute a mortar quantity. Once you know the brick count, the existing Mortar Bag Calculator works out how many bags of masonry cement that count needs, from a separately sourced manufacturer yield.
- 03The 5 % waste allowance is the minimum the source itself states ("at least 5 percent"), not an average or a typical value — actual waste on a job with many cuts, corners, or openings can be higher.
- 04No header-course bond-pattern correction, no hollow-brick correction, and no collar-joint or multi-wythe mortar allowance is applied — this is a single-wythe brick count only.
- 05No deduction for door or window openings is made automatically — the area entered must already be the net wall area.
- 06One area per run — a wall spanning multiple sections with different brick formats needs to be run separately for each one.
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Updated: 9/6/2026