How many bricks does it take to build a house

How many bricks do you need to build a two-story house measuring 8 by 8 meters?

1. First, determine the length of the outer walls:

8 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 32 m.

2. If the height of the ceiling is, say, 3 meters, then the height of a two-story house is 6 meters, which means that the area of ​​the outer walls is 32 x 6 = 192 sq. m.

3. If we choose a masonry of 2.5 bricks, then the thickness of the walls is 64 cm. (Although for each project this value will have to be calculated individually, based on the structural features of the building, the weight of the floors, etc.).

So, we have chosen a masonry of 2.5 bricks. In this case, the laying of 2 bricks will be made of double ordinary bricks and one row (in half a brick) – from a single front.

4. How many bricks do you need? If we take into account the mortar joints, we get:

192 x 104 (number of bricks in the masonry) = 19968 pieces of double ordinary (or 192 x 204 = 39168 pieces of single ordinary bricks);
192 x 51 (the number of bricks in the masonry) = 9792 pieces of front single bricks.

A single ordinary brick will cost no less than 2.2 rubles. per piece, double ordinary – 3.8 rubles, facing single – 3.1 rubles.

Rounding up and counting:
Private double: 20,000 x 3.8 = 76,000 rubles (or $ 2,685).
Facial single: 10,000 x 3.1 = 31,000 rubles (or about $ 1,100).

Using, for example, instead of an ordinary single, an ordinary double, we save $ 425 (40,000 x 2.2 = 88,000 rubles (or $ 3110)).

So, the whole brick will cost us at least 4 thousand dollars.

You can also calculate how much the house will cost with finishing. The builders have calculated that 1 sq. a square meter in a brick house costs $ 350 (a square meter in a wooden house will cost $ 200). That is, you need to multiply the total area of ​​the house (128 sq.m.) by $ 350.

It turns out that our house with finishing will cost 45 thousand dollars. From these figures it can be seen that the price of a brick will amount to 10% of the total cost of the house. The rest 40,000 are interior decoration and other decoration. Hence the conclusion suggests itself – saving on brick is completely unprofitable.

What determines the price

Several factors affect the price of a brick..

1.Geography. The cheapest brick on the Moscow market is Belarusian. Translated from local currency into ours, it turns out that ceramic bricks cost from 70 kopecks to 1.1 rubles apiece, and silicate bricks – from 50 to 80 kopecks. Shipping costs average 50% of the actual brick price. But even if we charge 100% for transportation, all the same, Belarusian brick in Moscow will remain the cheapest.
The most expensive brick is, of course, European. For example, an Estonian brick costs at least 50 cents per piece (more than 14 rubles). It is five times more expensive than the local one.

2. Seller. The cheapest way to buy at a brick factory, but then you have to pay a lot for transport. In trading companies, brick costs on average 15% more than in a factory, but this price also includes delivery to the place. In addition, firms practice discounts. In construction markets, where you can buy a brick by the piece, its price can be twice as high as at the factory.

3. Brand. The higher the brand, the more expensive the brick is. Brick M125 is more expensive than M100 by about 10%. The difference in price between “hundredth” and “two hundredth” brands can be 20-30%.

size 4. It is more profitable to buy ceramic stones or double bricks. The dependence here is approximately the following: an increase in the size of a brick by 50% increases its price by 20%. For example, a single brick costs 100 kopecks, a one and a half brick will cost 120 kopecks, and a double one – 140 kopecks.

In general, the higher the brand, the more expensive it is. And the larger the stone, the cheaper it is. If you buy from a factory, you will have to pay for transportation. And this is not always cheaper than buying a brick from a dealer.

But the cheapest option: brick from the nearest factory, double, grade 100-125.

Minimum brick prices by Moscow trading firms (RUB / piece)

Brick type: Single / One and a half / Double

Private 2.20 / 2.50 / 3.80
Facial 3.10 / 3.80 / 5-6
Silicate 1.60 / 1.85 / No data

Expert tips:

When buying a brick, ask for supporting documents: a certificate or a product passport. In the absence of these documents on a brick, it is better not to be tempted.

Do not buy brick in winter (although it is cheaper) if the place where it will be stored all winter is not guarded. The brick will be stolen from the unguarded territory. It is best to buy a brick before the start of the construction season, in March-April, when its price has not yet started to rise.

If you do not want to “heat the street”, do not make the outer walls less than 2.5 bricks thick (that is, 64 cm), otherwise the heat will leave the house.

When buying imported bricks, keep in mind that European standards do not always coincide with domestic ones, remember this when using imported and Russian bricks together.

The thickness of reinforced concrete elements (lintels, floor slabs) is a multiple of the height of domestic bricks. This is done so that these elements are easily docked together..

Expert opinion

Architect Levon Harutyunyan:

Is it true that our ancestors built better than us?

– It is a myth that in the old days they built better. True, modern brick is often not of very good quality, but modern mortar is better and stronger, and in general the masonry benefits from this.

Foreman Sergei Zlatomrezhev:

Transportation of bricks?

– Transportation of bricks is not difficult. Brick comes from 5-10% combat, but that’s okay. If it will lie down for several months later, the number of battles may increase by another 10 percent. But this is not terrible, the halves also go into action. And I would recommend buying facing brick on a pallet packed in polyethylene.

Bricklayer Nikolai Egorovich:

Do bricklayers have their own masonry techniques?

– Receptions are the same for everyone. In winter, we put the brick on a mortar with additives so that it does not freeze quickly. We don’t add anything in the summer. True, when it is very hot in summer, we soak an ordinary brick (from which we put the inner rows). Otherwise, it instantly draws water from the masonry mortar, the masonry turns out to be worse, less durable. But the brick, from which we lay out the arches, we soak at any time of the year so that the solution sets more slowly and the masonry turns out to be stronger.

Bricklayer Andrey:

You can tell by its appearance whether the brick is good?

– A good brick is a beautiful brick, even, without chips. And it is more convenient for a bricklayer to work with such a brick. In addition, the mortar must be plastic so that the brick is laid – and the mortar can be easily squeezed out. The liquid solution flows down, the hand gets tired from the thick solution, and the brick does not sit well on it.

Yuri Smirnov, head of the laboratory for research of raw materials and resource-saving technologies of ceramic wall materials, VNIISTROM named after P.P. Budnikova.

– The best option to avoid efflorescence is to conduct tests before buying a brick and get a specialist opinion on the correspondence of the brick and mortar. It happens that it is the combination of a certain type of mortar with a certain type of brick that leads to efflorescence. One component is in a brick, the other in a solution, and when combined, they give an unnecessary reaction.