Evaluating Materials for a 5? Brick Wall

Types of Wall

In terms of their function, all walls are either load bearing or non-load bearing walls. A load bearing wall is part of the structure of the building - it holds the building up. A non-load bearing wall is only a partition that divides the various rooms of a building. You can demolish a wall if it is a non-load bearing wall; you cannot move or demolish a load bearing wall.

It is not easy for a layman to determine whether a wall is load bearing or not. You must rely on the advice of an experienced, licensed structural engineer.

Most modern multi-storey buildings are constructed with structural frames and non-load bearing walls. Most residential buildings in the US, and nearly all wood framed buildings are constructed with load bearing walls of the platform frame or balloon frame types.

Brick Wall

Brick wall is used to separate a floor in a different usable space. Such as bed room, living room, toilet, kitchen, store etc.

We use different thickness of brick walls for this purpose. The thickness can be 3-inch, 5 inch and 10 inches. We normally make 10-inch-thick brick wall at periphery and 5-inch-thick brick wall as internal partition wall.

Whatever you are, a house owner, a civil engineer, a construction supervisor, a civil contractor or a builder, you should estimate the required raw materials for the brick walls which you plan to build.

Material Specifications for a 5? Brick Wall

5 inches thick brick walls are constructed in internal walls. 3 inches thick brick wall is seldom found on a building floor. In the following steps, you will learn how to measure materials for 5 inches thick brick wall.

The following three materials are required to build up a 5 Inches thick brick wall:

1. Bricks
2. Cement
3. Sand

Brick: First class bricks are utilized to construct brick walls. The standard size of bricks is 9.5" X 4.5" X 2.75".

Cement: Portland cement is generally utilized in brickwork. The weight of a cement bag is 50 kilogram that is equivalent to 1.25 cubic feet.

Sand: Generally, medium sand is best suited.

How to Calculate Bricks For 5 Inches Thick Brick Wall?

Let's take 10 feet long and 10 feet high brick wall for our estimation project. Then, area of our wall is,

10' X 10?= 100 square feet.
As our wall thickness is 5 inches, so the wall?s volume is,
100 sq.ft. x 5 inch = 41.67 cu.ft.
5" = 0.42)
= 42 cubic feet

Calculating the Volume of a Brick (Including Mortar)

The standard brick size is, 9.5" X 4.5" X 2.75.

When we make a brick wall, we normally use ?? thick of mortar in between bricks for jointing. Including that mortar joint, the brick size will be, 10" x 5" x 3".

So, the volume of a brick (including mortar) is,
= 10" x 5" x 3"
= 0.83? x 0.42? x 0.25?
= 0.087 cubic feet.

Now we can calculate the number of bricks for our estimated brickwork.
Number of bricks = Volume of brickwork / Volume of a brick (including mortar)
=42 / 0.087
=482 nos

Due to wastage during carrying and working, we take this number as 500. So, the required numbers of bricks for 100 square feet brickwork is 500.

Brickwork Calculation & Formula

To calculate mortar volume, you first need to get the total volume of bricks used to make brick walls. Then you need to deduct the bricks volume from the volume of brickwork.

Mortar volume = brick wall volume - bricks volume.

We use 482 numbers of bricks to make our brick wall.
So, the volume of these bricks are,
= 482 x 9.5" x 4.5" x 2.75".
= 482 x 0.79? x 0.37? x 0.23?
= 32.40 cubic feet.

The brick wall volume we calculated above is 42 cubic feet.
So, the mortar volume is,
= 42 - 32.40
= 9.60 cubic ft

Cement Sand proportion

The commonly used cement-sand proportion to make 5" thick brick walls is 1:4. The mortar volume we require to make our brick wall is 9.60 cubic feet which we calculated above.

To analyse cement-sand volume we need to get the dry volume of this wet volume.

Dry volume of mortar is,
= wet volume of mortar x 1.30
= 9.60 x 1.30
= 12.48 cubic feet.

How to work out the dry volume of mortar
It is known that the dry volume of mortar is,
= Wet volume of mortar x 1.30
=10 x 1.30
=13.00 cubic feet.

The process for measuring cement and sand volume in mortar
The proportion of cement and sand in mortar is 1:4. It means one unit of cement will be blended with four units of sand.

Total units of elements in mortar are 1+4=5.
Cement volume is,
= (dry volume of mortar ? sum of the ratio) ? cement proportion in the mortar mix.
= (12.48?5) ?1
=2.50 cubic feet.
For A 50 KG Cement Bag, the volume of a bag of cement is 1.25.
= (2.50?1.25) = 2
Thus, we require 2 bags of cement for the estimated brick project.
The sand volume is,
= (dry volume of mortar ? sum of the ratio) ? sand proportion in the mortar mix.
= (12.48?5) ?4
=10 cubic feet.

The Final Resolution

Thus, to calculate materials for 5" thick brick wall, first one needs to see the brick work Quantity and after that count the number of bricks required in the project. After that calculate the volume of the required numbers of bricks and the volume of estimated brickwork. And then deduct the volume of bricks from the volume of brickwork to get the required mortar volume. Firstly, get the exact mortar volume, once you get the mortar volume get the dry volume of that. The last step is to find the cement sand ratio, which further evaluates the cement sand quantity.

Evaluating Materials for a 5? Brick Wall