How Many Bricks for 1,000 Square Feet?
Brick to buy
7,200 brick
1,000 square feet of wall face in modular brick, 3/8 in joints, five percent waste.
When the figures look right, the brick material list downloads as a real PDF with your business details on it, built inside your own browser. Nothing you type is uploaded anywhere.
How that number is worked out
These are the figures this page was built with and every line the calculator produces from them. Change anything above and all of it moves.
- Wall length125 ft
- Wall height8 ft
- Openings to deduct0 sq ft
- Brick sizeModular, 7 5/8 x 2 1/4
- Mortar joint0.375 in
- Waste allowance5 %
Brick to buy7,200 brick
| Net wall area | 1,000 sq ft |
|---|---|
| Brick per sq ft | 6.86 |
| Brick before waste | 6,858 |
| Courses | 37at 2.625 in per course |
| Mortar in the joints | 55.3 cu ft |
| Mortar to buy | 110.6 cu ftjoint volume doubled, see the assumptions |
| Mortar mix, 80 lb bags | 18537 brick per bag |
| Wall ties | 375 |
| Weep holes | 46 |
The material list this produces
| Brick | 7,200 |
|---|---|
| Mortar mix, 80 lb bags | 185 |
| Wall ties | 375 |
| Weep vents | 46 |
| Flashing, ft | 125 |
Brick size compared
The same wall in every brick size the calculator carries, at this page's area. Modular is the default because it is what most of the country builds with, but a wall specified in king or utility brick needs far fewer units and far less mortar, and the labor drops with the unit count.
| Brick size | Brick to buy | Brick per sq ft | Mortar mix, 80 lb bags |
|---|---|---|---|
| Modular | 7,200 brick | 6.86 | 185 |
| Standard | 6,878 brick | 6.55 | 183 |
| Queen | 6,048 brick | 5.76 | 124 |
| Engineer | 5,930 brick | 5.65 | 161 |
| King | 5,040 brick | 4.8 | 121 |
| Utility | 3,150 brick | 3 | 123 |
What else matters here
A thousand square feet is roughly the veneer on a small single story house, and it is the size at which the delivery stops being a detail and becomes part of the plan.
Seven thousand two hundred brick is somewhere around eighteen tons on the truck, arriving banded on pallets that a boom truck has to place. Where it gets placed decides a large part of how long the job takes, because every brick is picked up by hand at least twice and a stack in the wrong corner of the site is paid for on every one of them. Put the pallets along the elevation they belong to, on ground that will still be firm after rain.
Cover it as well. Brick delivered dry and then rained on goes into the wall saturated, and a saturated brick will not take mortar properly: the joint cannot suck into it, the bond is poor and the wall runs with efflorescence for the first year. A tarp over the stacks is the cheapest item in a job this size.
What this calculator assumes
- Sizes are actual face dimensions, not nominal. A modular brick is 7 5/8 by 2 1/4, and it is the 3/8 joint around it that makes up the nominal 8 by 2 2/3 the coursing is laid out from.
- This is a single wythe, which is what a veneer is. A solid two wythe wall is twice the brick and twice the mortar.
- Mortar is the volume of the bed and head joints across the bed depth of the brick, doubled. The doubling is not a fudge, it lands the bag count on the figure printed on the bag: an 80 pound bag of mortar mix yields about 0.6 cubic feet and lays roughly 37 modular brick.
- Wall ties are one per 2.67 square feet, which is 16 inches horizontally by 24 vertically, the spacing in TMS 402 for anchored veneer.
- Weep holes are one every 33 inches along the base course, which is the usual reading of the 33 inch maximum.
Questions people ask
How many bricks do I need for 1,000 square feet?
7,200 modular brick, which is 6,858 for the wall plus five percent waste.
How much does a brick delivery weigh?
7,200 modular brick is in the region of eighteen tons, delivered banded on pallets. It needs firm ground and a truck that can place it where the work is.
Should brick be covered on site?
Yes. A saturated brick will not bond, because the joint cannot suck into it, and the wall gets poor adhesion and a year of efflorescence. A tarp over the stacks costs nothing.
The brick calculator takes any dimensions you like and hands back the same list.