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Brick calculator
Work out how many bricks a wall takes, in single or double skin, and roughly how much mortar goes with them.
Your details
Measure the wall.
In metres.
In metres.
A percentage. Five per cent covers ordinary breakages.
Sixty bricks a square metre
A standard British brick is 215 by 102.5 by 65 millimetres, and with ten millimetre mortar joints that works out at sixty bricks per square metre of single-skin wall. Double skin doubles it. This is the figure every builders' merchant uses, so a quote based on it should tally.
Foundations and permission
Bricks are the easy part. A freestanding garden wall above about a metre needs a proper foundation, and a wall that retains soil is a structural job that should be designed rather than guessed. Walls next to a highway, and walls above two metres, may also need planning permission.