The modular brick of IS 1077 is 190×90×90 mm. With 10 mm of mortar joint, each brick effectively occupies 200×100×100 mm in a wall. The calculator gives you the brick count, mortar volume, and the cement/sand needed for the mortar — all with wastage allowance.
What is Brick?
Bricks are the basic building unit for non-structural walls in India. IS 1077:1992 specifies two families: the modular brick at 190×90×90 mm, which the code calls the preferred size, and the non-modular brick at 230×110×70 mm, still the one most commonly made and laid outside the big cities. With 10 mm of mortar joint on every face, a modular brick occupies 200×100×100 mm in the wall and a non-modular one 240×120×80 mm.
What a kiln actually delivers is a separate question from what the code specifies. The conventional hand-moulded brick sold across much of north India runs nearer 230×115×75 mm, and parts of south India use a much larger 290×140×90 mm block. Neither is an IS 1077 size, so neither is offered as an option here — but the difference is not academic: at 230×115×75 a cubic metre of wall takes about 392 bricks rather than 434. Measure one from the actual delivery before you place the order.
The math comes down to: divide the wall volume by the brick-with-mortar volume to get brick count. Then estimate mortar at ~30% of wall volume (since the mortar fills the gaps between bricks).
Wastage during transport, breakage, and cutting adds 5-10% to the order. Always order whole pallets — bricks are sold in stacks of 500 typically.
Wall volume ÷ brick volume
- L, H, T
- Length, Height, Thickness—wall dimensions in metres
- 200×100×100
- Effective brick volume—Indian brick + 10mm mortar
- 1.33
- Dry volume factor for mortar—voids + shrinkage
How to use this calculator
Wall length × height × thickness, plus brick size and wastage allowance.
Enter wall length and height
In metres. For irregular walls, calculate each section separately and sum.
Pick wall thickness
9 inch (single brick) is standard for partition walls. 4.5 inch for half-brick walls. 13.5 inch for load-bearing or external walls in some traditional buildings.
Pick brick size
Modular (190×90×90mm) is the size IS 1077 prefers and what most machine-made bricks are. Pick non-modular (230×110×70mm) if your supplier is a local kiln — it is the bigger brick, so you need roughly 434 per m³ instead of 500. English-size bricks (215×102.5×65mm) appear in older buildings or imports.
Set wastage
5% for careful sites, 10% for rough handling. Bricks break during transport.
Common scenarios
Boundary wall
200 ft × 6 ft × 9 inch wall — calculator gives bricks + mortar + cement for the entire perimeter.
Internal partition walls
4.5 inch (half-brick) walls dividing rooms. About half the bricks of a 9-inch wall.
External load-bearing
13.5-inch walls for older-style construction or where RCC is replaced by brick.
Compound wall vs RCC slab
Compare brick + mortar cost against pre-cast RCC slabs for boundary walls.
Glossary
- Modular brick
- The preferred size of IS 1077:1992: 190×90×90 mm, sized so that one brick plus a 10 mm joint lands on a round 200 mm module.
- Non-modular brick
- The other size IS 1077:1992 allows, 230×110×70 mm. Larger than the modular brick, so a cubic metre of wall takes about 434 of them rather than 500.
- Mortar joint
- Standard 10 mm — the gap between bricks filled with cement-sand mortar.
- Single brick wall
- 9-inch (230 mm) wall built with full bricks laid header-stretcher pattern.
- Half brick wall
- 4.5-inch (110 mm) wall built with bricks laid stretcher-only. For partitions, not load-bearing.