Bricklaying Time Calculator

How the bricklaying time calculator works

Bricklaying time is wall area multiplied by a production rate, divided by the number of bricklayers. The calculator gives you the elapsed hours, the total person-hours, the working days at your hours per day, and the labour cost at your hourly rate. On the US side the area is in square feet and the rate in hours per 100 ft²; on the metric side it's square metres and hours per m².

With the defaults, 215 ft² of wall at 9.8 hours per 100 ft² is 215 × 9.8 ÷ 100 = 21.1 person-hours, 2.6 eight-hour days for one bricklayer, and $1,158.85 at $55 an hour. The metric default, 20 m² at 0.86 hours per m², is 17.2 hours, about 2.2 days, and £481.60 at £28 an hour.

Where the default rate comes from

Bricklayers talk in bricks per day, so the default starts there. A 2018 Masonry Magazine article, the trade magazine of the Mason Contractors Association of America, reports Texas mason contractors estimating brick jobs at 550 bricks per bricklayer per day. Over an eight-hour day that's 68.75 bricks an hour.

Turning that into an area rate needs the number of bricks in a square foot or metre of wall. The Brick Industry Association's Technical Note 10 gives 675 modular bricks per 100 ft² with ⅜ in joints, so 675 ÷ 68.75 = 9.8 hours per 100 ft². A UK standard brick, 215 by 65 mm with 10 mm joints, works out at 1 ÷ (0.225 × 0.075) = 59.3 bricks per m², so 59.3 ÷ 68.75 = 0.86 hours per m². An Australian brick, 230 by 76 mm with 10 mm joints, is about 48.4 per m² and 0.70 hours per m² at the same laying speed.

Using your own figure

If you know how many bricks a day you or your bricklayer lays, convert it: hours per 100 ft² = 675 × hours per day ÷ bricks per day, or hours per m² = bricks per m² × hours per day ÷ bricks per day. At 800 bricks in an eight-hour day, that's 6.75 hours per 100 ft² for modular brick or 0.59 per m² for UK brick. The same article notes that contractors running incentive schemes report up to 1,600 modular bricks a day, which would be 3.4 hours per 100 ft². Output that high is the exception, not a planning figure.

Worked examples

A wall 30 ft long and 8 ft high with one 3 by 7 ft door opening has 240 − 21 = 219 ft² of brickwork. Technical Note 10's wall-area method uses the net area, gross minus openings, so enter 219. At the default rate that's 21.5 person-hours, or 10.7 hours with two bricklayers. In metric, a wall 9 m long and 2.4 m high with a 1.9 m² door opening is 19.7 m², which is 16.9 person-hours, or 8.5 hours for two.

Checking the answer in bricks

It helps to turn the hours back into bricks. The default 215 ft² of modular brick is 215 × 6.75 = 1,451 bricks, and at 550 a day that's 2.6 days, the same answer as the hours route. The metric default, 20 m² of UK brick, is about 1,185 bricks, or about 2.2 days. If your bricklayer quotes in bricks a day, this is the quickest way to see whether the calculator and the quote agree.

The rate is per square foot or metre of single-leaf wall, one brick thick. A wall two bricks thick has twice the bricks in the same face area: 1,350 modular bricks per 100 ft², or about 119 UK bricks per m² for a one-brick (215 mm) solid wall. At 550 a day those take about 19.6 hours per 100 ft² and 1.72 hours per m². Enter the doubled rate, not a doubled area, so the area still matches the drawings. Cavity walls are two separate leaves, so run each leaf as its own wall, with the rate for whatever it's built from.

Who counts as crew

Enter the number of people laying bricks. The 550-a-day figure is per bricklayer, and bricklayers are normally supported by a labourer who mixes mortar and keeps them supplied; the crew codes in Craftsman's National Construction Estimator preview pair a bricklayer with a bricklayer's helper. That helper's hours and pay aren't in this calculation, so add them separately, or use a blended hourly rate that covers both.

Labour cost is total person-hours times the rate, so adding bricklayers shortens the job without changing the cost. On a short run of wall, two bricklayers share the same lines and scaffold lift and may not halve the time.

What the rate leaves out

The default is a general estimating figure for ordinary brick walling. Anything that slows a bricklayer down needs a higher rate: many corners and returns, piers, reveals and openings, decorative bonds, soldier courses and arches, cutting, working from scaffold at height, bad weather, or a facing brick where every joint has to be perfect. Building in damp-proof courses, wall ties and lintels as the wall goes up slows the laying rate too. Setting out, putting up scaffolding, cleaning down and pointing a finished wall are separate tasks on top of the laying time.

Treat the result as the laying time for a straightforward wall, and adjust the rate for the job in front of you. A bricklayer's own daily output on similar work, converted with the formulas above, is a better guide than any published average.