Brickwork Basics


  • Ensure to read the brickwork construction procedure provided by the client
  • Cement mortar ratio should be 1:6 for 200mm Brickwork and 1:4 100mm brickwork
  • Mortar thickness should not be more than 10 mm between the courses and sides of the bricks
  • Ensure you are using good quality of cement and sand. 

Brickwork Calculation & Formula

  • The size of the modular brick is 190 X 90 X 90 (refer the picture)
  • Mortar Thickness is 10mm
  • Assume required brickwork volume is 1 cubic metre (m3)

Any brick walls consist of bricks and cement mortar.

So, first of all, we are going to find the volume of bricks with mortar thickness and then volume of bricks alone

Volume of bricks with mortar

Volume of 1 brick with mortar = 200 X 100 X 100 ( 10 mm mortar thickness on all sides)

                                             = 0.2 X 0.1 X 0.1

Volume of brick with mortar = 0.002 Cum (m3)

Therefore, Number of bricks required for 1 cubic metre = 1/0.002 = 500 No.s

Volume of bricks without mortar

Volume of 1 brick without mortar = 190 X 90 X 90

  = 0.19 X 0.09 X 0.09

Volume of 1 brick without mortar  =  0.001539 Cum (m3)

Volume of 500 bricks without mortar = 500 X 0.001539 Cum

Volume of bricks without mortar for 1 cum = 0.7695 Cum  (m3)

Therefore,

Required amount of cement mortar = 1 Cum – Volume of bricks without mortar

                                                                 = 1 – 0.7695

Required amount of cement mortar  = 0.2305 Cum  (m3) (Wet Condition)

The above volume is in a wet condition that means we need 0.2305 cement mortar in mixed condition (after adding water). In order to find the dry volume, we need to multiply 33 % as bulkage of sand.

Dry volume of a mortar = 0.2305 cum X 1.33 = 0.306565 cum

We know the mortar ratio is 1:6 (1 part Cement & 6 Part Sand = 7 Part)

Required amount Cement quantity in brickwork = 0.306565 X 1/7 X 1440 kg

Density of cement = 1440 kg. The reason to multiply this density is, the above multiplication will give us only required amount of cement quantity in brickwork as a cubic metre. But we need cement in Kg. Therefore we are multiplying the 1440 kg density of cement to calculate the cement quantity. For more detail read this "The density of Cement, Sand and Aggregate"


Required amount Cement quantity = 63 Kg = 1.26 bags (50 Kg bag)

Required amount of Sand = 0.306565 X 6/7 = 0.26277 Cubic metre  (m3)

Therefore, For 1 cum of brickwork, we need

  • 500 Numbers of bricks
  • 63 kg of cement
  • 0.263 m3 of sand.