Brick Calculator
Find out how many bricks to buy for a wall, including mortar joints, openings, and waste.
Wall dimensions
Results
For a 20 ft × 6 ft wall with 0 doors and 0 windows, at 7 bricks/sq ft plus 10% waste, you'll need about 924 bricks.
Bricks to buy
924 bricks
That's a typical project quantity — a garden wall, a chimney reface, or a single veneer wall, in the range of one to five banded cubes.
Order the full quantity (including your waste allowance) as one delivery from one production run, and have the bricklayer blend from multiple cubes while laying so any within-run color variation disperses across the wall instead of banding.
Wall area (after openings): 120 sq ft
Bricks before waste: 840 bricks
How this works
The calculator multiplies your wall's length by its height to get face area, subtracts a standard opening size for each door (about 17 sq ft) and window (about 15.5 sq ft) you enter, then multiplies the remaining area by the bricks-per-square-foot rate. The default rate of 7 bricks per square foot is the established convention for standard US modular brick laid with a 3/8" mortar joint: each brick plus its joint occupies a nominal 8" × 2-2/3" module, or 32 square inches, of wall face — the rate therefore already includes the mortar joints, and you shouldn't add anything for them. The result is then increased by your selected waste percentage (5–15%) for cuts at corners and openings, breakage, and rejects, and finally rounded up to a whole brick, since you can't buy a fraction of one. Two things are deliberately out of scope: mortar quantity (a different material with its own coverage math — check your mortar bag) and accessories like wall ties, flashing, and lintels for veneer work. If your brick isn't standard modular — queen, king, or utility formats, or metric-format brick — open the rate adjustment and enter the manufacturer's own coverage figure, because format is the single biggest source of error in a brick takeoff. The unit toggle switches every input between feet and metres; internally the tool always computes in canonical SI units, so switching never introduces rounding drift Brick coverage convention (7 bricks/sq ft, modular brick with 3/8" joint): The Home Depot brick estimating guide; sizing per Brick Industry Association Technical Note 10.
Worked example
A garden wall 20 ft long and 6 ft high with no openings: face area is 20 × 6 = 120 sq ft. At the standard 7 bricks per square foot for modular brick with a 3/8" joint, that's 120 × 7 = 840 bricks. Adding the default 10% waste allowance for cuts and breakage gives 924 bricks to buy. Since US brick is commonly banded in cubes of roughly 500, that's most of two cubes — which is worth knowing before you choose between delivery and pickup.
A second example: a veneer wall with openings
A 30 ft × 8 ft house wall being brick-veneered, with one standard door and one standard window: gross area is 240 sq ft. Subtracting the standard openings (about 17.2 sq ft for the door and 15.5 sq ft for the window) leaves roughly 207 sq ft of brick face. At 7 bricks per square foot that's about 1,451 bricks, and with 10% waste the buy quantity is 1,597 — call it 1,600. Notice that the two openings saved about 250 bricks; on a wall with several windows, skipping the opening subtraction meaningfully overstates the order.
Common mistakes
Using the wall's perimeter instead of one face's length
This calculator takes one wall's length × height. If you're bricking all four sides of a building, run it once per wall (or enter the total combined length) — but don't double-count corners on small structures, where the same corner brick serves two faces. For a small shed or pillar, subtracting one brick-width per corner per course keeps the estimate honest.
Assuming all bricks are modular size
Queen brick, king brick, engineer brick, and utility brick all cover different areas — utility brick (nominal 4×12 in face) needs only about 3 per square foot versus 7 for modular. Ordering 7/sq ft worth of utility brick more than doubles your order. Check the format name on the supplier listing and adjust the rate before trusting the count.
Forgetting that brick color varies by batch
Brick is fired clay, and the blend shifts between kiln runs. Order the entire job — including your waste allowance and repair spares — as one order from one production run, and have the mason blend bricks from multiple cubes while laying so any within-run variation is dispersed across the wall rather than showing as banding.
Skipping the waste allowance on a wall with corners or openings
Every corner, jamb, and end of a running-bond wall needs cut half-bricks, and clay brick breaks in handling more often than concrete block. The 5% minimum exists for dead-straight runs; a wall with a door, two windows, and two corners genuinely consumes close to 10% extra, which is why that's the default rather than an optional pad.
Treating the brick count as the whole shopping list
A brick wall also needs mortar, and — for veneer over framing — wall ties (typically one per 2.67 sq ft or so, per code), flashing, weep holes, and steel lintels over openings. None of those are in this count. The most common budget surprise on a first brick project is the accessories line, not the brick itself.
Measuring the wall's height to the roofline instead of the bricked height
Gable-end walls, walls with a stone or block base course, and walls that stop at a soffit are all shorter in brick than the tape-measure height of the structure. Measure only the area that will actually be brick; for a triangular gable, use half of width × gable height and add it to the rectangular portion.
When this calculator's model stops applying
- Non-modular brick formats (queen, king, engineer, utility, Roman): the 7/sq ft default is wrong for all of them — sometimes by a factor of two. Always enter the manufacturer's own units-per-square-foot figure via the rate adjustment for anything other than standard modular brick.
- Bonds other than running bond: Flemish and English bonds expose header faces and consume noticeably more brick per square foot of wall; stack bond changes cutting patterns at openings. The default rate assumes running bond only.
- Curved or serpentine walls: the face-area math still holds approximately, but cutting waste rises sharply on tight radii — use the 15% waste setting and expect the real number to depend on the curve's radius versus the brick length.
- Paving and flatwork: bricks laid flat as a walkway or patio cover about 4.5 per sq ft (modular), not 7, and use sand-set or mortar-bed methods with entirely different waste characteristics. Use a paver-specific estimate instead.
- Double-wythe and structural walls: multiply by two for two wythes, and note that header courses that tie wythes together shift the per-area count — a structural takeoff should come from a mason or engineer, with this tool as a sanity check.
- Very tall walls (over roughly 12 ft): lift height, scaffolding, and code-required reinforcement and inspection typically apply; the brick count still works but is the least of the planning problem at that scale.
- Openings much larger or smaller than the standard assumption: the fixed ~17 sq ft door and ~15.5 sq ft window subtractions drift for garage doors, sidelights, transoms, or basement windows — subtract the real opening areas manually when they're unusual.
FAQ
What brick size does this calculator assume?
The default rate of 7 bricks per square foot assumes a standard US modular brick — 7-5/8" long × 2-1/4" high on its face — laid in running bond with a 3/8" mortar joint, which makes each brick occupy a nominal 8" × 2-2/3" module of wall. If you're using queen, king, utility, or oversized brick, the count per square foot drops substantially (utility brick covers nearly twice the area per unit), so open the rate adjustment and enter your brick's actual coverage figure from the manufacturer's spec sheet.
Does the estimate include mortar joints?
Yes — the 7-bricks-per-square-foot convention is a coverage rate, meaning it already accounts for the 3/8" mortar joint around each brick. You should not add anything for joint thickness. What it does not include is the mortar itself: budget separately for mortar mix (a common rule of thumb is one 80 lb bag of mortar per roughly 30–40 modular bricks, but check your mortar bag's own coverage statement).
Is this for a single-wythe (single-layer) wall?
Yes. The calculation covers one vertical layer of brick — a veneer over a framed wall, a garden wall one brick thick, or the visible face of a structural wall. A double-wythe structural wall needs twice the count; a brick walkway or patio laid flat is a different geometry entirely (bricks laid flat cover about 4.5 per square foot for modular brick) and shouldn't use this tool's wall-face rate.
Why does the calculator subtract doors and windows?
Openings aren't bricked, so their area doesn't need brick. Each door you enter subtracts a standard opening of about 17 sq ft (0.8 m × 2.0 m) and each window about 15.5 sq ft (1.2 m × 1.2 m) — the same disclosed standard-opening assumption used across BuildyWork's wall calculators. If your wall has an unusually large opening (a garage door, a picture window), subtract its real area from the wall area yourself for a tighter estimate.
How much waste should I add?
The selectable 5%, 10%, or 15% covers cuts, breakage in transit, and rejected units. Use 5% for a simple straight run with few cuts, 10% (the default) for typical walls with corners and openings, and 15% for walls with many cuts — angled ends, curves, soldier courses, or decorative bonds like herringbone that generate lots of half-brick offcuts.
Should I buy extra bricks beyond the waste allowance?
For a wall you may need to repair someday, yes — a small attic stash of 10–20 spare bricks from the same production run is the only reliable way to match color later, because brick color varies batch to batch (it's a fired clay product, and kiln conditions shift). Retailers generally won't stock the identical blend years later.
Does brick orientation or bond pattern change the count?
Yes, meaningfully. The 7/sq ft rate assumes stretcher (running) bond, the most common pattern, where every brick shows its long face. Bonds that turn bricks header-on (Flemish, English bond) expose the short end, which covers less area per brick, so those walls need more bricks per square foot. Decorative patterns also raise the waste percentage because of extra cutting.
How many bricks come in a pack or cube?
US brick is typically sold banded in cubes (straps) of around 500–530 modular bricks, though pack counts vary by manufacturer and brick size. For large orders, your supplier will quote in cubes — divide this calculator's total by the pack count to see how many cubes to order, and expect to buy whole cubes for delivered orders.
Can I use this for a chimney or pillar?
Only roughly. A chimney or pier is bricked on all four faces around a small core, so treat each face as its own small wall and sum them — but corner overlaps mean the simple face-area method over-counts slightly, and flue liners, caps, and corbeled courses add complexity the calculator doesn't model. For structural chimney work, get a mason's takeoff.
Does the calculator work in metric?
Yes — the unit toggle switches every field between feet and metres without losing what you've entered. Internally the tool always computes in canonical SI units, so toggling back and forth never introduces rounding drift. Note the default rate is calibrated to US modular brick; UK/metric standard bricks (215 × 65 mm with a 10 mm joint) work out to about 60 bricks per m², which is close to but not identical to the US default of ~75 per m² — adjust the rate if you're using metric-format brick.
How much mortar do I need for the bricks?
This tool counts bricks only. As a planning figure, an 80 lb bag of premixed mortar typically lays roughly 30–40 modular bricks with a 3/8" joint, so a 1,000-brick wall needs on the order of 25–35 bags — but mortar coverage varies enough by mix and joint style that you should confirm against the coverage printed on your mortar bag before ordering.
Why is my result different from my mason's estimate?
Professional takeoffs often price in extras this tool deliberately leaves out: mortar, wall ties, lintels over openings, weep provisions, and a contractor's own waste habit (some carry 15% as standard). A mason may also count actual opening sizes rather than the standard-opening assumption used here. Treat this calculator as your independent check on the brick line item, not the whole materials list.