Brick calculator for a wall in India: bricks, cement bags and sand

How does the brick calculator work?

It counts bricks by the face of the wall, then works out the mortar each brick needs, the way Indian estimates do:

• Area to lay: wall length × wall height, less every door and window.
• Bricks: area ÷ (brick length + joint) × (brick height + joint). A 4½-inch wall (half brick) is one layer of bricks; a 9-inch wall (one brick) is two, so it takes twice as many. Rounded up.
• To order: bricks × 1.05, rounded up. The 5% covers cut bricks at corners and openings, and breakage.
• Mortar, wet: each brick plus a 10 mm joint on its bed, end and side, less the brick itself. For a modular brick that is 0.2 × 0.1 × 0.1 − 0.19 × 0.09 × 0.09 = 0.000461 m³ a brick.
• Mortar, dry: wet × 1.33. Dry cement and sand take about a third more room than the mortar they make.
• Cement: dry ÷ 7 for 1:6 (÷ 6 for 1:5, ÷ 5 for 1:4) gives cubic metres; × 1440 kg/m³ gives kilograms; ÷ 50 gives bags.
• Sand: the other 6 parts of 7 (or 5 of 6, or 4 of 5), in m³; × 35.31 for cft; ÷ 100 for brass.

In feet the calculator works in millimetres inside (1 ft = 304.8 mm) and shows the area in square feet. For a room, add the lengths of the walls along their centre line, so the corners aren't counted twice.

Worked example: a 9-inch wall, 20 × 10 ft, with a door

Modular bricks, 1:6 mortar, a wall 20 ft long and 10 ft high with a 3 × 7 ft door. These are the numbers the calculator opens with.

1. Area: 20 × 10 = 200 sq ft, less the door 3 × 7 = 21 sq ft, so 179 sq ft (16.63 m²).
2. Bricks per m²: 2 ÷ (0.2 × 0.1) = 100, so 16.63 × 100 = 1663.0, or 1663 bricks.
3. To order: 1663 × 1.05 = 1746.2, so 1747 bricks.
4. Mortar, wet: 1663 × 0.000461 = 0.767 m³. Dry: 0.767 × 1.33 = 1.020 m³.
5. Cement: 1.020 ÷ 7 = 0.146 m³ × 1440 = 210 kg, which is 4.20 bags; buy 5.
6. Sand: 1.020 × 6 ÷ 7 = 0.874 m³, which is 30.9 cft (0.31 brass).

As brickwork, that wall is 16.63 m² × 0.2 m = 3.33 m³ (117.5 cft). Switch the calculator to Millimetres and it opens on a 6000 × 3000 mm wall with a 900 × 2100 mm door: 16.11 m², 1611 bricks, 1692 to order, 4.06 bags of cement and 29.9 cft of sand.

Worked example: a 4½-inch partition in 1:4

A partition of traditional 9 × 4½ × 3 in bricks (230 × 115 × 75 mm), 10 × 10 ft, no openings. Half-brick walls are usually laid in a richer 1:4 mortar; CPWD's analysis of rates prices them only in 1:3 or 1:4.

1. Area: 10 × 10 = 100 sq ft (9.29 m²).
2. Bricks per m²: 1 ÷ (0.24 × 0.085) = 49.02, so 9.29 × 49.02 = 455.4, or 456 bricks, and 479 to order.
3. Mortar per brick: 0.24 × 0.125 × 0.085 − 0.23 × 0.115 × 0.075 = 0.000566 m³, so 456 × 0.000566 = 0.258 m³ wet and 0.343 m³ dry.
4. Cement: 0.343 ÷ 5 = 0.0687 m³ × 1440 = 98.9 kg, so 1.98 bags; buy 2.
5. Sand: 0.343 × 4 ÷ 5 = 0.275 m³, which is 9.7 cft.

How many bricks in 1 sq ft and in 1 m³?

With 10 mm joints, before the 5% extra:

Per m³ is per cubic metre of brickwork at the thickness it is measured at: 200 mm for a one-brick wall of modular bricks, 230 mm for the others. A brass of brickwork (100 cft, 2.83 m³) is about 1416 modular bricks. For 100 sq ft of 9-inch wall: 9.2903 × 100 = 929.03, so 930 modular bricks and 977 with 5%.

Many sites divide the wall's volume by one brick with its mortar instead: 0.23 ÷ (0.24 × 0.125 × 0.085) = 90 traditional bricks per m² for a 9-inch wall, and 45 for a 4½-inch wall. That short-counts a 4½-inch wall by about 8%, because there is no joint across a wall one brick wide. Counting by the face, as this calculator does, gives 49.

What size are bricks in India?

The standard for common burnt clay bricks, IS 1077:1992, sets one modular size and allows a non-modular one:

• Modular, 190 × 90 × 90 mm (and 190 × 90 × 40 mm), clause 6.1.1. With a 10 mm joint it is 200 × 100 × 100 mm in the wall, so walls come out in round 100 mm steps.
• Non-modular, 230 × 110 × 70 mm (and 230 × 110 × 30 mm), clause 6.1.2, which “may also be used”.
• Traditional, 9 × 4½ × 3 in, named in the foreword of IS 2212, the code for brickwork. In millimetres it is usually written 230 × 115 × 75 mm; CPWD's specifications list non-modular bricks at 229 × 114 × 70 mm nominal. Local kilns vary, so measure ten of your bricks and use Other size if they differ.

IS 2212 allows 1 cm for the mortar joint in a wall's nominal thickness, so a one-brick wall of modular bricks is 20 cm nominal and 19 cm actual, and no bed joint may be thicker than 12 mm. CPWD measures walls half a brick thick or less in square metres, taking half a brick as 100 mm for modular bricks and 115 mm for non-modular ones.

How much cement and sand for brickwork?

Per cubic metre of one-brick wall, from the calculator's method:

Per 1000 modular bricks in 1:6: 0.461 m³ of wet mortar, 2.52 bags of cement and 18.6 cft of sand. In 1:4, 3.53 bags and 17.3 cft.

CPWD's Delhi Analysis of Rates 2014 is close. It allows 487 modular bricks and 0.220 m³ of 1:6 mortar per m³ of brickwork (item 6.2.2), and 494 non-modular bricks with 0.250 m³ (item 6.1.2), against 500 and 0.231 m³ here. For half-brick work in non-modular bricks it allows 0.28 m³ of mortar per 10 m² (items 6.12 and 6.13); the calculator gives 0.278 m³ for traditional bricks. Its 1:6 mortar takes 0.25 tonne of cement and 1.07 m³ of sand per cubic metre (item 3.11), which works out to a dry factor of about 1.25; 1.33 here leaves a little in hand.

Which mix: IS 2250, the code for masonry mortars, lists 1:6 cement-sand as grade MM 3, 1:5 as MM 5 and 1:4 as MM 7.5; the higher the grade, the stronger the mortar. IS 2212 asks for about 1:4 where brickwork is reinforced. The mix for a job comes from its drawings or specification.

Common mistakes

• Dividing by the brick without the joint. 0.19 × 0.09 instead of 0.2 × 0.1 gives 58 bricks per m² of half-brick wall instead of 50: 17% too many.
• Counting a 9-inch wall like a 4½-inch one. One brick thick means two layers, so twice the bricks per square foot.
• Leaving out the dry factor. Without the 1.33, 1:6 mortar for 1 m³ of modular brickwork comes to 0.95 bags of cement instead of 1.26.
• Mixing up sq ft and m². 1 m² is 10.76 sq ft; 100 bricks per m² is 9.29 per sq ft.
• Counting corners twice. For a room, measure the walls along their centre line, or one wall to the outside corner and the next to the inside face.
• Ordering the exact count. Cut and broken bricks use more than the area says. Order the figure with 5% in it, more where there are many short returns.

Questions people ask

What this calculator doesn't do

• One straight wall at a time, in solid brickwork. Add walls of the same thickness together; work 9-inch and 4½-inch walls separately.
• No piers, columns, arches, jali work or brick-on-edge courses, and no lintels or sills: count those separately.
• No plaster. Plaster is a separate sum of area × thickness, with its own mix.
• Frogs, deep raking and uneven bricks use more mortar than the joints alone. The 1.33 and the 5% on bricks leave a margin, not a guarantee.
• It doesn't decide what a wall must be. That comes from the drawings, the structural engineer and your local body's building rules.

The slab, beams and footings under and over the walls are concrete: the concrete mix calculator gives the cement, sand and aggregate for M20, M15 or M10 nominal mix, and construction calculations in India converts cft, brass and cubic metres. For blocks and bricks with premixed mortar in other countries, see the block calculator. MeisterCalc's own Concrete calculator works out slab and footing volumes on Android, offline, and is free to use.

Sources

Checked on 1 November 2026.

• IS 1077:1992, Common burnt clay building bricks (PDF, Public.Resource.Org copy): clauses 6.1.1 and 6.1.2, brick sizes.
• IS 2212:1991, Brickwork, code of practice (PDF): clause 3 (nominal thickness and the 1 cm joint), 6.4.1 (joints no thicker than 12 mm), 11.8.5 (about 1:4 for reinforced brickwork) and the foreword (the 9 × 4½ × 3 in brick).
• IS 2250:1981, Preparation and use of masonry mortars (PDF): Table 1, mortar grades.
• CPWD Delhi Analysis of Rates 2014, Volume 1 (PDF): items 3.11, 6.1.2, 6.2.2, 6.12 and 6.13.
• CPWD Specifications 2009, Volume 1 (PDF): Table 6.1 (brick sizes), 6.2.5 (1 cm joints) and 6.2.8 (measuring brickwork).
• IS 875 (Part 1):1987, Unit weights (PDF): Table 1, cement 1440 kg/m³.
• IS 269, Ordinary Portland cement (PDF, 2013 text): clause 9.1.1, “The net quantity of cement per bag shall be 50 kg”.
• JK Cement, how to calculate the plastering ratio: dry volume of mortar = wet volume “+ approximately 33%”.

Related guides

• Concrete mix calculator (M20, M15, M10): cement bags, sand and aggregate
• Construction calculations in India: feet, mm, cft, brass and bags
• Block calculator: concrete blocks, CMU (cinder block) and bricks for a wall
• How to convert millimetres to feet and inches