Brick sizes chart: modular, queen, king, Norman and more

The chart

Modular and non-modular

Modular brick is sized so that brick plus a ⅜ in joint lands on a 4 in grid: a modular brick is 7⅝ in long, so with its joint it takes 8 in; three courses of 2¼ in brick with joints rise 8 in. That lines up with 8 in concrete block, so brick veneer and block backup walls course together, and window and door openings fall on whole bricks.

Non-modular sizes — standard, queen and king among them — don’t follow that grid. Queen and king brick are popular for house veneer because their 2¾–3 in depth is lighter and thinner; the trade-off is more careful layout, since five courses of queen brick rise 15⅝ in rather than a round number. See how many queen size bricks per square foot.

Bricks per square foot

The count depends only on the face of the brick plus its joints. Modular brick, the most common, is 6.75 per square foot — 675 per 100 sq ft. BIA recommends adding at least 5% for waste and breakage. The worked example is how many bricks per square foot.

Mortar by brick size

BIA also tabulates mortar: for modular brick with ⅜ in joints, 5.5 cu ft per 100 sq ft of wall, or 8.1 cu ft per 1,000 bricks, before waste; with ½ in joints, 6.9 and 10.3. It recommends adding 15–25% for mortar waste. Quikrete’s per-bag figure — up to 37 standard bricks per 80 lb bag of mortar mix — is the practical way to buy: see how many bags of mortar per 1000 brick.

Brick for garden projects

For a round brick fire pit, the count per course comes from the inside circle divided by the brick length — about 15 modular bricks per course for a 36 in ring; see the variants on how many blocks for a 36 inch fire pit. Bricks laid flat as paving show their bed face instead, so the count per square foot is different from a wall. Ordinary building brick isn’t rated for direct fire; fire pits and fireplaces use firebrick inside.

Veneer alternatives

If you are comparing brick with stone, manufactured stone veneer is sold by the box rather than the piece — ProVia packs flats at about 10 sq ft per box — and set in a scratch coat and mortar bed. See how much mortar for stone veneer.

Thicker walls and other joint sizes

The counts above are for a single wythe — one brick thick — which is how veneer and most garden walls are built. A solid wall two wythes thick needs twice the bricks for the same face area, plus mortar for the collar joint between the wythes; BIA’s Technical Note 10 gives that separately. If your mason uses ½ in joints rather than ⅜ in, each brick plus its joint takes up a little more wall, so slightly fewer bricks are needed but noticeably more mortar — BIA’s ½ in figure for modular brick is 6.9 cu ft of mortar per 100 sq ft against 5.5 at ⅜ in. Ask which joint the plans assume before you order.

Buying tips

• Brick colour varies between production runs. Buy the whole job at once, and mix bricks from several cubes as you lay.
• Ask how the supplier packs and sells brick — by the piece, the cube or the strapped bundle — since counts vary by plant.
• Order a few extra of any special shapes (sills, caps, corners); they are hard to match later.