How to Estimate Brick

Estimating brick on a home or building is a job most people do not realise how simple it is. This article will cover the basics for estimating brick.

Things You'll Need

• Tape measure,

Instructions

1. 

   Its importation to know where the brick starts [on the foundation] to where they stop. [at the brick rack or under the 1x? freeze boards] The picture in this step shows a details of the top bricks stopping under a standard "brick rack" the picture above this step shows a detail of the starter roll bricks and how they sit below grade.

2. 

   Measure and draw a layout [if you don't have blueprints] of the outside of the building being bricked. Its very importation to add 4-1/4" [the standard width of brick rack] to every corner for each way the brick runs on the building. Example: if a 10'x10' box was getting brick all the way around the measure needed for estimating would be 10'8-1/2"x10'8-1/2"

3. Putting the top two step together to get a rough estimate, For this example we will use a 10'x10' building again. knowing that there is 3 starter bricks/rolls we will need the height of the building / height from the foundation to the "brick rack", This example is height is 8'-1/4", a standard brick measures 2-1/4" x 3-1/2" x 8" and you can't forget about the 3/8" to 1/2" mortar line/joint. OK-Recap- step-2 showed that our example 10' wide wall will need to be estimated at 10'8-1/2" and a standard brick is 8" long + 1/2" [line/joint] so divide: 10'8-1/2/8-1/2"={15.1} next: a standard brick is 2-1/4" tall + 1/2" [line/joint] so divide: 8'-1/4"/2-3/4"={35}. So we know we need {15.1} bricks wide and {35} bricks tall for that one wall. Finish by multiplying {15.1}x{35}x{4}=[2114]. The total brick needed for all 4 walls on a 10'x10' building is 2114 bricks.

4. Last you would use the same math as above to figure out how many bricks to remove out of the estimate for each door and window. Example: a 3'x3' window in our example building would remove 64 brick per window.

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish
• Get material estimates made online