How Many Bricks for 600 Square Feet?
Brick to buy
4,320 brick
600 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 length75 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 buy4,320 brick
| Net wall area | 600 sq ft |
|---|---|
| Brick per sq ft | 6.86 |
| Brick before waste | 4,115 |
| Courses | 37at 2.625 in per course |
| Mortar in the joints | 33.2 cu ft |
| Mortar to buy | 66.4 cu ftjoint volume doubled, see the assumptions |
| Mortar mix, 80 lb bags | 11137 brick per bag |
| Wall ties | 225 |
| Weep holes | 28 |
The material list this produces
| Brick | 4,320 |
|---|---|
| Mortar mix, 80 lb bags | 111 |
| Wall ties | 225 |
| Weep vents | 28 |
| Flashing, ft | 75 |
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 | 4,320 brick | 6.86 | 111 |
| Standard | 4,127 brick | 6.55 | 110 |
| Queen | 3,629 brick | 5.76 | 74 |
| Engineer | 3,558 brick | 5.65 | 97 |
| King | 3,024 brick | 4.8 | 73 |
| Utility | 1,890 brick | 3 | 74 |
What else matters here
Six hundred square feet of veneer takes 225 wall ties, and the ties are the part of a brick order that is cheapest to buy and most expensive to get wrong.
That count works out at one tie for every 2.66 square feet of wall, which on a stud wall is a tie every 16 inches up each stud and every 24 inches across. A brick veneer is not holding the building up, it is hanging off it, and what stops it falling away from the wall in a wind is entirely those ties. They are also what fails first, because a tie nailed to sheathing instead of to a stud is holding onto nothing.
Buy them by the box and buy spares. They cost very little, they get bent, dropped and built over, and running out halfway up an elevation means either a trip to the yard or a course laid without them, which is the one course that will matter.
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 600 square feet?
4,320 modular brick, which is 4,115 for the wall plus five percent waste.
How many wall ties for 600 square feet of brick veneer?
225, which is one tie for roughly every 2.66 square feet of wall. On a stud wall that lands as a tie every 16 inches up each stud and every 24 inches across.
What happens if brick ties are nailed into sheathing?
They hold nothing. The tie has to reach a stud, because the veneer is hanging off the building rather than standing on its own, and the ties are the only thing keeping it against the wall.
The brick calculator takes any dimensions you like and hands back the same list.