How Many Bricks for 1,200 Square Feet?
Brick to buy
8,640 brick
1,200 square feet of wall face in modular brick, 3/8 in joints, five percent waste.
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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 length150 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 buy8,640 brick
| Net wall area | 1,200 sq ft |
|---|---|
| Brick per sq ft | 6.86 |
| Brick before waste | 8,229 |
| Courses | 37at 2.625 in per course |
| Mortar in the joints | 66.4 cu ft |
| Mortar to buy | 132.7 cu ftjoint volume doubled, see the assumptions |
| Mortar mix, 80 lb bags | 22237 brick per bag |
| Wall ties | 450 |
| Weep holes | 55 |
The material list this produces
| Brick | 8,640 |
|---|---|
| Mortar mix, 80 lb bags | 222 |
| Wall ties | 450 |
| Weep vents | 55 |
| Flashing, ft | 150 |
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 | 8,640 brick | 6.86 | 222 |
| Standard | 8,254 brick | 6.55 | 219 |
| Queen | 7,258 brick | 5.76 | 148 |
| Engineer | 7,116 brick | 5.65 | 193 |
| King | 6,048 brick | 4.8 | 145 |
| Utility | 3,780 brick | 3 | 148 |
What else matters here
Eight thousand six hundred brick will not all come from one firing, and on a wall this size that is the thing most likely to be visible from the road for the next fifty years.
Brick is fired in kiln runs and the color moves between them, sometimes by very little and sometimes by a lot. A delivery of this size may be several runs on the same order. If the work takes each pallet in turn, the change lands as a horizontal band across the elevation exactly where one pallet ran out, and it is unmissable because it is straight.
The fix is to blend, and it costs nothing but discipline. Draw from three or four pallets at once all day, so any variation is distributed across the wall as texture rather than concentrated as a line. It is also worth standing back at the end of the first day and looking at what has been laid from where people will actually see it, because a band is easy to take down on day one and impossible on day six.
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 1,200 square feet?
8,640 modular brick, which is 8,229 for the wall plus five percent waste.
Why does a brick wall have color bands?
Because brick is fired in batches and the batches differ, and the wall was laid one pallet at a time. The change lands as a straight horizontal line where a pallet ran out.
How do you blend brick?
Draw from three or four pallets at once throughout the day rather than working one out before opening the next. That spreads any variation across the wall as texture instead of concentrating it as a band.
The brick calculator takes any dimensions you like and hands back the same list.