How Many Bricks for 500 Square Feet?
Brick to buy
3,600 brick
500 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 length62.5 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 buy3,600 brick
| Net wall area | 500 sq ft |
|---|---|
| Brick per sq ft | 6.86 |
| Brick before waste | 3,429 |
| Courses | 37at 2.625 in per course |
| Mortar in the joints | 27.6 cu ft |
| Mortar to buy | 55.3 cu ftjoint volume doubled, see the assumptions |
| Mortar mix, 80 lb bags | 9337 brick per bag |
| Wall ties | 188 |
| Weep holes | 23 |
The material list this produces
| Brick | 3,600 |
|---|---|
| Mortar mix, 80 lb bags | 93 |
| Wall ties | 188 |
| Weep vents | 23 |
| Flashing, ft | 63 |
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 | 3,600 brick | 6.86 | 93 |
| Standard | 3,439 brick | 6.55 | 92 |
| Queen | 3,024 brick | 5.76 | 62 |
| Engineer | 2,965 brick | 5.65 | 81 |
| King | 2,520 brick | 4.8 | 61 |
| Utility | 1,575 brick | 3 | 62 |
What else matters here
Five hundred square feet is 3,600 brick and 93 bags of mortar, and the mortar is the number people get wrong, because it is far more than the joints appear to hold.
The joints on this wall are 27.6 cubic feet of mortar, and the calculator orders 55.3. That doubling is not a safety margin, it is what actually happens on a wall. Mortar goes on the board, on the ground, on the scaffold and into the tub at the end of a batch that stiffened before it was used, and the bed joint is buttered proud and then squeezed out and struck off. A wall built to the theoretical joint volume runs out of mortar around two thirds of the way up.
Ninety three bags is also about two and a half tons of material to get to the work, which is worth thinking about before the delivery rather than after. It wants to be dry, it wants to be near the mixer, and it does not want to be the thing that is carried the furthest.
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 500 square feet?
3,600 modular brick, which is 3,429 for the wall plus five percent waste.
How much mortar for 500 square feet of brick?
About 93 bags of 80 lb mortar mix. The joints themselves hold 27.6 cubic feet, and the order is double that, because mortar is lost on the board, on the ground and in batches that stiffen before they are used.
Why is the mortar order double the joint volume?
Because that is the waste a real wall generates. It is squeezed out and struck off, dropped, and left in the tub, and a wall ordered to the theoretical joint volume runs short before the top.
The brick calculator takes any dimensions you like and hands back the same list.