How Much Does a Brick Weigh? Dimensions & Types

Bricks are a common building material that has been in use for hundreds of years. Today, bricks are becoming popular once again. The latest designs love to incorporate brick both inside the house and outside the house. This has led a lot of homeowners to look into buying bricks on their own to do some of their own brickwork. But how much does a brick weigh? Are they very heavy?

The standard brick that most people are familiar with is the red clay brick. A typical red brick weighs 5 pounds. But that is not the only type of brick available. There are lots of different types of bricks used for various applications, and they all weigh different amounts.

Dimensions of a Typical Red Brick

The measurements for a standard brick in the United States are controlled by the American Society for Testing and Materials. That means that every standard brick in the country abides by the same measurements, which means they should all weigh roughly the same amount. The standard dimensions of a red brick, as per the American Society for Testing and Materials, is 3⅝” x 2¼” x 8” (92 mm x 57 mm x 203 mm). You might sometimes hear them referred to as a standard eight-inch brick.

According to those measurements, a standard red brick weighs 5 pounds, but it can weigh as little as 4.3 pounds, depending on the density of the clay in the brick. Most standard bricks are not supposed to weigh any more than 5 pounds on average.

Buying Bricks In Bulk

If you are looking to buy bricks in bulk for a home project, there are a few things you are going to want to keep in mind. First, the cost of a typical red brick runs, on average, around $0.65 per brick. A pallet holds roughly 500 bricks on average. That means a pallet of bricks will weigh 2,500 pounds, which is over one ton. A pallet of bricks will cost around $325. Few people will be able to get a bulk order of bricks home without having a company deliver them on a truck.

However, there are plenty of places that will sell bricks in bulk just to account for the cost and the weight when placing the order.

• See Also: How Much Do Bricklayers Charge Per Brick? What You Need To Know!

Different Types of Bricks

While standard red brick is the most common type of brick and the one that most people are familiar with. There are over a dozen different types of bricks available on the market. Some bricks have odd names like Engineer Norman, Double Monarch, and Modular Economo. In most cases, these bricks have very specific purposes for professional bricklayers or are used in commercial construction. However, it is good to know that some of these bricks weigh a lot more than a typical red brick.

Here are 10 alternative brick styles and their weights that you might encounter.

There are even more bricks than these also available at professional yards that deal specifically in bricks. However, despite the variety of bricks, most bricks continue to weigh around 5 pounds. Some of them weigh a little more, and some of them weigh a lot more, but 5 pounds seems to be the most common weight for a brick of almost any style.

• See Also: 10 DIY Brick Oven Ideas: Build a Homemade Pizza Oven (with Pictures)

Conclusion

Despite the plethora of bricks available, the vast majority of standard homeowners are going to be looking at standard red bricks. A standard red brick weighs roughly 5 pounds, which is a nice, easy number to remember and a round number that is easy to use in calculations. As bricks continue to be heavily used in construction and design, it is a good idea to remember their weight, just in case.

See Also:

• How to Paint Brick in 4 Easy Steps
• What Are Run-Flat Tires? What You Need To Know!

Featured Image Credit: mariastone, Pixabay