Brickwork quantity calculation: bricks, cement & sand per m³

Estimating brickwork is one of the most common tasks in a Bill of Quantities (BOQ). This guide shows how to work out the number of bricks, cement bags and sand for one cubic metre of brick masonry using standard modular bricks and cement mortar, in line with IS 2212 (Code of Practice for Brickwork).

Step 1 — Volume of one brick with mortar joint

A standard modular brick is 190 × 90 × 90 mm. Adding a 10 mm mortar joint on each face gives a nominal size of 200 × 100 × 100 mm:

Nominal brick volume = 0.20 × 0.10 × 0.10 = 0.002 m³

Step 2 — Number of bricks per m³

Number of bricks = 1 ÷ 0.002 = ≈ 500 bricks per m³ of brickwork. Add 3–5% for wastage/breakage on site.

Step 3 — Mortar quantity

Actual (dry) brick volume = 0.19 × 0.09 × 0.09 = 0.001539 m³. For 500 bricks that is 0.77 m³, so the wet mortar volume in 1 m³ of brickwork is about 0.23 m³. Applying the dry-to-wet factor of 1.33 gives a dry mortar volume of ≈ 0.30 m³.

Step 4 — Cement and sand (CM 1:6)

For cement mortar 1:6, the total ratio parts = 1 + 6 = 7.

• Cement = (1/7) × 0.30 = 0.0437 m³ ÷ 0.0347 m³/bag ≈ 1.26 bags (a 50 kg bag ≈ 0.0347 m³)
• Sand = (6/7) × 0.30 ≈ 0.26 m³

Summary — per 1 m³ brickwork (modular brick, CM 1:6)

CivilOS runs this exact calculation live — enter your wall length, height, thickness, brick size and mortar ratio, and it returns the bricks, cement and sand with every step shown, then adds the line straight into your BOQ.