Bricks by size, bond and joint

Between 3.00 and 6.86, depending entirely on which brick and which joint. A modular laid in running bond with a 3/8 in joint is 6.86 per square foot, a queen is 5.76, a Norman is 4.57 and a utility is 3.00 — all at that same joint, all in the same bond. The single number sites quote is usually the modular figure rounded to seven, which is right for one product on the shelf and wrong by more than half for the big units a commercial job is clad in.

The nominal size includes the mortar joint; the actual, or specified, size is the fired unit on its own. A modular brick is called 4 by 2 2/3 by 8 and measures 3 5/8 by 2 1/4 by 7 5/8, the difference in each direction being the 3/8 in joint it was dimensioned around. The distinction matters at the takeoff because dividing a wall by the nominal face is right and dividing it by the specified face is 22% too many bricks, and it matters again at the opening, where a rough opening laid out on nominal dimensions is the one that closes on a whole brick.

Because the vertical module was set before the joint was, and 8 divided by 3 is not a fraction that a brick height plus 3/8 lands on. Three courses of a 2 1/4 in brick with 3/8 in beds come to 7 7/8 in, an eighth short of the 8 in the coursing promises, so the bed joint actually runs about 5/12 in — between 3/8 and 7/16 — and a mason sets that off a story pole rather than off a spacer. The consequence for an order is small but real: an 8 ft wall is 36 courses on the module and 36.6 at a true 3/8 bed, which is about 1.6% more brick than the module predicts.

In a solid wall, no; in a veneer, only slightly, and never by the multiplier a bond table implies. A brick occupies one module of wall volume whichever way it is turned, so a two-wythe wall is exactly twice the running-bond count no matter which bond shows on the face. In a single-wythe veneer the headers have nothing behind them to bond into, so they are snapped in half and two faces come out of one unit — which on a modular brick works out to precisely the running-bond count, because its width module is exactly half its length module, and on a queen to about 4% more, because its is not.

Usually 500 for modular face brick, with plants banding anywhere from 480 to 534. The count is a manufacturing decision rather than a standard, so it is printed on the band tag and is the number to plan the delivery around: a 500-brick cube of cored modular weighs a little over a ton, which is a forklift or a boom truck and not two people and a wheelbarrow. Yards will break a cube and sell loose brick, so an order rarely has to round up to a whole cube — but it will be priced differently when it does.

Deduct the large ones and leave the small ones in. The long-standing estimating convention is to ignore openings under about 10 square feet, because the extra cutting along both jambs, the soldier course or arch over the head, and the return under the sill consume most of what deducting a small opening saves. On a wall with several large windows the deduction is worth taking, but it is worth raising the waste allowance at the same time — every opening you deduct adds two vertical runs of cut brick that the deduction has just removed from the count.

Five percent on a plain running-bond wall, and more as the geometry gets busier. That figure covers breakage in transit, the units culled for color or chipping, and the closures cut at corners and rakes. A wall with several openings, a raked or gabled top, or a bond that needs snapped headers is closer to 10%, and a job in a brick that has been discontinued should be ordered heavy on purpose, because a replacement cube fired two years later will not match the range you are laying.