Blocks, mortar and packaging for walls, with the openings taken out first.
Foundation, roof and structure. 5 questions answered below, each with the arithmetic behind it and the limits of what the tool decides. Open the Masonry, Brickwork and Blockwork tool.
Masonry is where construction estimating starts, and it is still the discipline most often done by rule of thumb. A wall has a length, a height and a thickness, and from those three numbers come the units, the mortar and the cement, with no need for a rate per square metre that hides which block it assumed. The calculator asks for the wall type because the unit differs: a block wall, a brick wall and a thin joint system have different unit sizes, different joint thicknesses and different mortar volumes. Openings are deducted by dimension, and the mortar follows the joint rather than the wall area, which is why a change of block size moves the cement as well as the count.
A wall of twenty four metres at two point seven, in four hundred and fifty by two hundred and twenty five millimetre blocks at a ten millimetre joint, gives sixty four point eight square metres. A door and two windows account for five point four square metres, leaving fifty nine point four, which at a block covering just over a tenth of a square metre is about five hundred and eighty blocks before waste. Mortar at ten millimetres over that area is a little over half a cubic metre, which in a one to five mix is about a hundred kilogrammes of cement and the sand that goes with it.
Block walls, brick walls and thin joint systems, with the unit size and joint thickness following the type you select. Each has its own coverage per unit and its own mortar volume, so the tool does not blend them. Where a wall uses more than one type, measure each as its own wall and add the results, which keeps the block count and the brick count separate for ordering.
Deducted by width and height with their quantity, so doors, windows and vents come out of the unit count rather than being added as an afterthought. An opening is an area, not a count, so a wide low window and a narrow tall one are handled by their dimensions. What is not deducted is the extra cutting and the lintel above, which are separate items you price on their own.
Yes. Cement packaging and mortar specifications come from the market you select, so a fifty kilogramme bag and a twenty five kilogramme bag are both handled, and the engine never falls back to one country's packaging when a market is set. Where the market's specification differs on joint thickness or mix, that is an input you can enter, so the same wall can be priced to a local practice without changing the tool.
Both are included, and they follow the wall rather than being added per square metre. Mortar volume follows the wall type and the joint thickness, so a thin joint system uses a fraction of the mortar a ten millimetre joint does, and the cement follows the mix you specify. Cement is expressed in the bag size sold in your market, so the order is a number of bags rather than a weight to convert at the counter.
No. It measures materials. Slenderness, lateral support, movement joints and reinforcement for a wall that is retaining or carrying load belong to an engineer, and a quantity tool that offered an opinion on them would be answering a question it cannot see the inputs for. Use the count to order blocks and the engineer's design to decide how the wall is built.