Brick Calculator

How Many Bricks Do I Need?

Measure each wall face, multiply its length by its height, and subtract the door and window openings. For several walls using the same product, add their areas and enter the total in the known-area mode. Do not count the inside and outside faces of a single brick layer as two layers.

The brick wall calculator multiplies net area by this coverage rate and the number of identical layers. It applies your extra allowance to that unrounded quantity, then rounds up once. A supplier's nominal face module already includes the joint; adding it again would undercount the bricks.

A wall with one door

A 20 ft × 8 ft wall has 160 ft² of face area. Subtract a 3 ft × 7 ft door: 139 ft² remains. A modular face of 7⅝ × 2¼ in with a ⅜ in joint occupies an 8 × 2⅝ in module. That gives 139 × 144 ÷ 21 = 953.14 brick equivalents, or 954 whole bricks without an extra allowance.

With a hypothetical 5% allowance, the unrounded requirement becomes 1,000.8, rounded to 1,001 bricks. The 5% is an example, not a recommended waste rate. If your supplier sells only packs of 500, that example requires three packs; confirm whether split packs are available before ordering.

Bricks per Square Foot: Size and Mortar Joints

Use the brick calculator for square feet when you already have the net or gross wall area. Leave openings blank if you have already deducted them. Coverage changes with the exposed face and joint width, even when two products are both called standard bricks.

The example dimensions follow Glen-Gery's published size options. Check the selected product rather than relying on the size name. If the supplier publishes a laying rate for your bond, use “Supplier bricks per unit area” instead of reconstructing it from a generic brick size.

For metric measurements, the same face-module method uses square meters and millimeters: bricks per m² = 1,000,000 ÷ module area in mm². A 215 × 65 mm face with a 10 mm joint gives approximately 59.26 bricks per m²; this is a dimension example, not a universal UK or metric brick rate.

Wall Thickness, Bond and Brick Color

A “9-inch wall” does not tell you the number of bricks per square foot by itself. The brick dimensions, arrangement and number of layers matter. Use the two-layer option only for two identical brick layers with the same face coverage. It does not generate an English or Flemish bond takeoff, count alternating headers, or treat a cavity as solid brick.

For a consistent header-only face, enter the exposed width as the face length. For a mixed bond, use a product- and pattern-specific coverage rate or a detailed layout. Count corners, cut units, lintel details and special courses separately. The area result is not a row-by-row laying plan or a structural design.

A red brick calculator uses the same dimensional method: color does not set coverage. A red modular brick and a larger red brick can need different quantities for the same wall.

For floor bricks or a brick patio, use the paver calculator, which uses the laying face and can estimate separate base and bedding layers. This page counts wall bricks; it does not estimate mortar bags or concrete blocks.