Brick and mortar calculator
Estimate bricks and mortar for a wall from brick size and joint thickness; 10 m² with 215 × 65 mm bricks and 10 mm joints needs about 593 bricks before waste.
- Runs in your browser
- No upload
- Instant result
Quantity estimate only. This does not approve structural safety, load capacity, drainage, fire resistance or building-code compliance. Verify the design and local requirements with a qualified professional. Purchase quantities round up to whole packs.
Assumptions & formula
Formula and assumptions
w = Waste allowance/100; n=S/((L+j)(H+j)); bricks=ceil(n(1+w)); V=(S×D−nLHD)(1+w)
Single-leaf running bond with solid rectangular bricks. Joint width enlarges the face module. Mortar excludes the theoretical solid brick volume, then adds your waste. Frogs, holes, boundary cuts and other bonds are not modeled.
The prefilled values are editable examples, not product specifications. Enter your supplier’s yield, density, coverage and packaging values, and add an allowance for overlaps, compaction and cuts where needed.
Purchase counts use the exact entered decimals and unit factors, without a rounding tolerance that could discard a real remainder. π and irrational square roots use enclosing bounds; ambiguous counts produce an error. Counts must be safe integers.
Results
Enter values and press Calculate to see the result here.
How to use this calculator
- Set inputs and units
Enter the net wall rectangles, the brick face length and height, the joint width, the wall depth and the mortar bag yield in m³.
- Calculate
Check this worked example: wall10 m²,brick0.2×0.1 m,joint0.01 m,depth0.1 m,yield0.01 m³,waste0% →bricks433,mortar≈0.134199 m³,bags14
- Results
The brick count is rounded up. The mortar volume subtracts the theoretical solid volume of the bricks, not the volume of the rounded number of bricks you buy.
Questions and limits
Does the bond selector optimize masonry?
No. This model is a single-leaf running-bond face module. Holes, frogs and cuts at the boundary are not modeled.
Which input errors should I correct?
Use positive brick, joint, depth and yield values. Don't leave out the joints when you convert nominal brick dimensions.
What does this calculation leave out?
No structural wall design, reinforcement, moisture detailing or check that the mortar suits a specific product.