ContractorHandbook

How Many Bricks for a 10x10 Wall?

Brick to buy

720 brick

A wall 10 ft long and 10 ft tall in modular brick, 3/8 in joints, five percent waste.

It does not stop at a number.

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.

waste5%net wall area, sq ftbrick size plus the mortar joint sets brick per sq ftnet area x brick per sq ft = brick, plus mortar
Brick per square foot is not a property of the brick, it is a property of the brick plus the joint. A modular brick on a three eighths joint gives about 6.9 to the foot, and a different size or a different joint moves every number on the page.

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 length10 ft
  • Wall height10 ft
  • Openings to deduct0 sq ft
  • Brick sizeModular, 7 5/8 x 2 1/4
  • Mortar joint0.375 in
  • Waste allowance5 %

Brick to buy720 brick

Net wall area100 sq ft
Brick per sq ft6.86
Brick before waste686
Courses46at 2.625 in per course
Mortar in the joints5.5 cu ft
Mortar to buy11.1 cu ftjoint volume doubled, see the assumptions
Mortar mix, 80 lb bags1936 brick per bag
Wall ties38
Weep holes4

The material list this produces

Brick720
Mortar mix, 80 lb bags19
Wall ties38
Weep vents4
Flashing, ft10

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 sizeBrick to buyBrick per sq ftMortar mix, 80 lb bags
Modular720 brick6.8619
Standard688 brick6.5519
Queen605 brick5.7613
Engineer593 brick5.6517
King504 brick4.813
Utility315 brick313

What else matters here

A ten by ten wall is 100 square feet of face, which is where most of the searching for this size actually starts. The brick count only cares about that area: lay the same hundred square feet as a long low wall instead of a tall square one and you buy the same 720 brick.

What changes is the course count. Ten feet of height is 46 courses of modular brick, and 46 courses is past the point where a day's lift matters. Mortar carries the weight of everything above it while it is still green, and a wall run too high in one day slumps, squeezes the lower joints and goes out of plumb. Masons cap a day's lift at four or five feet for exactly this reason, so a ten foot wall is two days of laying whatever the brick count says.

Ten feet is also tall enough to need something to stand on. The last three or four feet cannot be laid off the ground, and a plank on two trestles is where a wall this size stops being a weekend job and starts being a scaffold hire.

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 for a 10x10 wall?

720 modular brick. That is 686 for the 100 square feet of wall plus a five percent waste allowance.

How many bricks is 100 square feet?

The same 720, because the brick count depends on the area and not on the shape. A hundred square feet laid long and low takes the same brick as a hundred laid tall and square.

Can a 10 foot wall be laid in one day?

It should not be. Green mortar carries everything above it, so a lift much over four or five feet squeezes the lower joints and pushes the wall out of plumb. Ten feet is two days.

Different numbers?

The brick calculator takes any dimensions you like and hands back the same list.

Other common sizes