Sixty bricks to the square metre is the number every bricklayer knows, and it only works because it already includes the mortar joint. Type the bare brick size into a calculator and you will order twenty-one per cent too many.
Enter the wall area and the coordinating brick size — that is the brick plus one joint. Defaults are the UK standard.
Works in metric and US imperial — you choose at the start and can switch at any time. Every figure this calculator uses is published with its source, and the result comes with a printable order sheet. No account, no email, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
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Because it includes the joint. The coordinating size of a standard UK brick is 225 × 75 mm — the brick plus a 10 mm joint — which gives 59.3 per square metre in stretcher bond, single skin. The trade rounds it to sixty. Type the bare brick size into a calculator instead and you will order roughly twenty per cent too many. If your answer for a standard wall is far off 59.3 per m², something in the inputs is wrong.
Brick colour varies between batches far more than most people expect, and a patch of slightly different brick on a front elevation is permanent. Order every brick in one delivery, from one batch. Then, because there is variation even within a batch, load out from three packs at once — taking bricks from one pack at a time lays that variation into horizontal bands across the finished wall.
Some will be broken, some will have mortar still attached, and sizes vary because old bricks were not made to modern tolerances. Ten per cent is a sensible allowance on new brick; reclaimed wants more. Anything structural — retaining walls, anything over about a metre free-standing, anything carrying load — needs design rather than a quantity: foundations, movement joints and reinforcement are not things a calculator decides.
59.3 for a standard UK brick in stretcher bond with 10 mm joints, single skin — the figure the trade rounds to sixty. It works because the coordinating size of 225 by 75 mm already includes one joint.
Coordinating size — the brick plus one joint. Entering the bare brick size will over-order by roughly twenty per cent. If your joint width is unusual, as some conservation work is at 6 mm, adjust the coordinating size to match.
Brick colour varies between batches more than people expect, and a patch of different brick on a front elevation never blends in. Order the whole job in one delivery from one batch.
Around 10% on new brick. Reclaimed brick needs more — some will be broken, some will still have mortar attached, and sizes vary because old bricks were not made to modern tolerances.