Brick weight and bricks per pallet

How much does a brick weigh?

The weight of a brick follows its size and how dense the clay is fired. A modular brick weighs about 4.3 lb (2.0 kg), the brick most houses are built with, but makers publish anything from 3.6–4.4 lb: Glen-Gery's plant sheets run 3.6 to 4.1 lb, Belden lists 4.39 lb and Old Carolina 4.3 lb. Treat the first number in each row as the typical weight and the bracket as the spread between makers.

The queen weight is the midpoint of the two makers we found (3.9 and 5 lb), and the standard row is Glen-Gery's 4.4 lb with Belden's 4.58 lb as the top. The utility brick is the outlier: it is as tall as it is wide and three times as long as it is thick, so it weighs a little over twice a modular brick (9.7 lb against 4.3). The king brick is longer but thinner, so at about 4 lb it weighs about the same as a modular. The UK row is for readers working in metric: a 215 × 102.5 × 65 mm facing brick, about 60 per m² at a 10 mm joint. Lightweight and hollow bricks weigh less, and a damp brick weighs more than a dry one, so use these figures for estimating, not for a structural load check.

How many bricks are on a pallet?

Brick is sold by the pallet, which the trade calls a cube, strapped and stacked to a count the plant sets. A modular or standard pallet carries 525 bricks; the larger queen brick means fewer, 430–520 depending on maker; a king pallet holds 368 and a utility pallet 198–201. Solid clay pavers vary by maker: 470 to 500 to a pallet, and the 8 × 4 × 2¼ in clay paver sold at Home Depot comes 240 to a pallet covering 53 ft².

Counts differ by manufacturer and plant, and a pallet tag is the figure to order from. Wall coverage is the count divided by the bricks per square foot below, before any waste; the paver rows are flat paving, with no mortar joint. Belden's 470 pavers are quoted at about 101 ft² with sand joints, a little under the 104 ft² that 470 ÷ 4.5 gives.

How much does a pallet of bricks weigh?

Count times unit weight: 525 modular bricks at 4.3 lb is about 2,250 lb (1,020 kg) typical. Across the makers above the range is 1,900–2,300 lb, so a modular pallet is "about a ton" and not a figure to the pound. The wooden pallet and strapping add a little on top.

The typical figures are rounded to the nearest 50 lb. A pallet of modular, standard, queen or utility brick is roughly a ton, which is more than most half-ton pickups can carry in one go; king brick comes in lighter at about 1,500 lb. Yards deliver on a boom truck, and the same arithmetic applies to pavers, whose pallet weight is worked out in the paver sizes and weights guide.

How many bricks per square foot?

In a wall, a modular brick plus its mortar joint covers about 0.146 ft², which is 6.86 bricks per square foot of wall face (about 73.8 per m²) at a 3/8 in joint. Bigger bricks cover more, so fewer go in each square foot.

Why does modular read 6.86 in one place and 6.75 in another? The Brick Industry Association (Technical Note 10, Table 4) counts modular brick on the nominal 2⅔ in course, 675 per 100 ft², while Glen-Gery divides the wall by the actual 2⅝ in brick height plus the 3/8 in joint, 8 × 2⅝ in per brick, which gives 686. Both are right for their method; the 6.86 here is what the brick calculator uses. Standard and utility agree in both; queen differs (5.76 and 5.5) for a similar reason, since makers cut it to different heights. King brick is given only in the BIA table, and some makers quote 4.8 to 5 per ft² for it.

These counts are for a running-bond wall with 3/8 in joints and no waste; add 5 to 10 % for cuts and breakage. The solid paver rows are for a paved surface, not a wall. To turn a wall's height and length into bricks, mortar and pallets, use the brick calculator.

How much does a brick wall weigh?

A single wythe (one brick thick, 3⅝ in) of modular brick at 6.86 bricks per ft² and 4.3 lb each is about 29.5 lb of brick per square foot of wall, and its mortar joints add about 6 lb, so a finished wall comes to roughly 36 lb per ft² (173 kg per m²). Engineers carry a design allowance of 40 lb per ft² for 3⅝ in brick veneer, which covers the lighter and the heavier makers. A 10 × 8 ft wall is then about 2,840 lb.

How much mortar per 1,000 bricks?

The Brick Industry Association puts the mortar in the joints of 1,000 modular bricks at 8.1 cubic feet with a 3/8 in joint (10.3 at 1/2 in), or about 5.5 ft³ per 100 ft² of wall. That is the net figure; add 15 to 25 % for the mortar that is dropped, squeezed out and left in the mixer. For modular brick that is 9.3 to 10.1 ft³, which is 16 to 17 bags of 80 lb premixed Type N or S mortar.

The bag yield is Quikrete's 0.6 ft³ for an 80 lb bag of Type N mortar mix; the 70 lb column scales that by weight. A bag label that says "37 bricks per bag" is a cautious field figure, about 27 bags per 1,000, so buy a few extra if the crew will lay generously. The brick calculator and the brick dimensions and course heights guide use the same BIA basis.

Sizes and course heights are in brick dimensions and course heights.

Sources

• Brick Industry Association (BIA), Technical Note 10, Dimensioning and Estimating Brick Masonry (gobrick.com): Table 4 bricks per 100 sq ft (modular 675, standard 655, queen 550, king 455, utility 300) and net mortar per 1,000 brick at a 3/8 in joint (modular 8.1 cu ft, 10.3 at 1/2 in, queen 12.2, king 14.2, standard 14.5, utility 12.3); "Mortar Waste": add 15 to 25 percent to the net mortar.
• Bricks per square foot, Glen-Gery Brick Sizes and Dimensions table (glengery.com/brick-sizes): modular 6.86, standard 6.55, queen 5.76, utility 3.0. Glen-Gery works from the actual brick height (8 × 2⅝ in), BIA from the 2⅔ in nominal course, which is why the modular figures are 6.86 and 6.75.
• Unit weights and bricks per cube, Glen-Gery plant technical data sheets (Pittsburgh Red Essentials series; Iberia/Uptown 2024): modular 3.6 to 4.1 lb, standard 4.4 lb, utility 9.6 to 9.7 lb, 525 per cube for modular and standard, 198 to 201 for utility, queen 520 per cube at 3.9 lb.
• Belden Brick dimensions guide (beldenbrick.com/resources/brick-dimensions-guide): modular 4.39 lb, standard 4.58 lb; its older guide lists 4.20 and 4.40 lb. Belden clay paver 4 × 8 × 2¼ in: 470 per pallet covering about 101 sq ft with sand joints (Gertens dealer listing) at 6.3 lb each (Kuhlman listing for Belden Regimental Red).
• Old Carolina Brick Company packaging table: modular 4.3 lb and 525 per pallet, queen 5 lb and 430 per pallet, 4 × 8 × 2¼ in paver 5 lb and 500 per pallet. General Shale brick weight chart (queen 460 per cube) and King Size brochure (9⅝ × 2¾ × 2⅝ in, 4.0 lb, 368 per cube; its Cortez Kingsize listing says 4.2 lb; Triangle Brick lists 3.7 lb).
• Mutual Materials 8 × 4 × 2¼ in clay paver, Home Depot item 314445355: 240 per pallet, 53 sq ft; the listing gives no pallet weight.
• UK and metric facing brick, 215 × 102.5 × 65 mm: retailer listings for Wienerberger Harvest Buff (500 per pack, 975 kg, 1.95 kg each) and Forterra Woodside (504 per pack, about 2.5 kg each) at mkm.com and travisperkins.co.uk; packs run 400 to 520. About 60 per m² follows from the size plus a 10 mm joint.
• Mortar bag yield: an 80 lb bag of Quikrete Mortar Mix Type N (1102) yields about 0.6 cu ft; its data sheet quotes up to 37 standard brick per bag. A 70 lb bag is scaled by weight (about 0.5 cu ft), not from a data sheet. Wall weight: brick plus mortar worked from the figures above; Weyerhaeuser lists 40 psf for 3⅝ in brick veneer.
• Pallet weights are the brick count times the unit weight and leave out the wooden pallet and strapping. Weight and count vary by maker and plant; the pallet tag decides. Accessed 2026-10-23.