Masonry Estimating Services

They measure the masonry on a set of drawings and turn it into quantities you can order and bid from — wall areas netted of openings and converted to brick or block counts, mortar and grout derived from those counts, reinforcing and bond beams from the structural schedules, and accessories such as lintels, ties, flashing and control joints as their own line items.

Wall area by type, unit counts by size with special shapes separated, mortar by type, grout by volume, vertical and horizontal reinforcing, bond beams, lintels, ties, flashing, weeps and control joints. Cleaning and sealing are included where the specification calls for them.

A takeoff is the measurement; an estimate is the measurement with money attached. Takeoffs transfer between contractors because a block count is a block count. Estimates do not, because crew rates and supplier pricing are specific to your business. Many masonry subs want the takeoff only, for exactly that reason.

About 1.125 for a standard 8×8×16 unit. The nominal face is 8 by 16 inches, which is 128 square inches or 0.889 square feet, so one square foot takes 1.125 blocks. Different unit sizes give different figures, which is why we take the unit from the specification rather than assuming standard.

About 6.75 for modular brick, based on the nominal 8 inch by 2⅔ inch coursing — three courses to every 8 inches of height. You will also see 6.86, which comes from the actual unit plus a ⅜ inch joint, and "about 7" from rounded supplier tables. On large veneer areas the difference is worth several thousand brick, so we state which basis we used.

Yes, and they are quantified separately because they are different units, different mortar quantities and different labor rates. A cavity wall with block backup and brick veneer is two unit counts, two sets of accessories and one set of ties joining them.

From the cells that are actually filled, which comes from the structural reinforcing schedule — not from wall area. A solid-grouted wall and a wall grouted at 48 inches on center look identical in elevation and are different purchases. Published figures for solid-grouted 8 inch walls cluster around 1.1 to 1.3 cubic yards per 100 square feet, with partial grouting roughly half that or less.

Because some are per cell, some per block, some per square foot of wall, and some do not state whether they assume solid or partial grouting. One widely-used calculator publishes a per-cell figure and a per-100-square-foot figure that do not reconcile with each other by a factor of about seventeen. We quantify from your reinforcing schedule rather than from any published table, and NCMA TEK 4-2A is the reference worth checking if you want tables.

Yes — all three, and they are derived rather than assumed. Mortar follows the unit count and the specified joint, grout follows the grouted cells, and reinforcing comes off the structural drawings by bar size and spacing. Bond beams are carried separately because they consume both block and grout.

Yes. Ties, flashing, weeps, cavity vents, control and expansion joints, joint reinforcement and lintels are itemized. These are the lines most often dropped under time pressure and they are where masonry bids leak.

It varies by project, which is exactly the problem. Loose steel lintels sit between the masonry package and the steel package and each side can assume the other has them. We quantify them and state explicitly which package we put them in, so your bid letter can match.

Yes, by coverage area, stone type and specified installation method. Stone is the least standardized material in the trade — coverage varies by stone, pattern and joint — so the supplier's own coverage figures govern. We quantify the area, backup, ties and accessories and tell you where the supplier needs to confirm coverage rather than inventing a unit count.

Deducted from gross wall area before anything is converted to unit counts, and recorded individually — because each opening then generates a lintel, jamb detail and cut waste. Openings reduce the unit count and increase the accessory count at the same time, which is why netting them out without tracking them produces a low bid.

Architectural plans, the wall schedule and elevations are the minimum. Wall sections, the structural reinforcing schedule, door and window schedules, the lintel schedule and the specifications all improve the result. The structural drawings matter more here than contractors expect — without the reinforcing schedule, grout is an assumption rather than a quantity.

Grouting pattern first on CMU work, then unit size and type, bond pattern, opening density, wall height and access, reinforcing density, specified mortar type, cleaning and sealing requirements, weather provisions, and local crew rates. Masonry is labor-intensive, so crew productivity moves the number more than on most trades.

Yes. Labor is organized by operation — layout, laying, reinforcing, grouting, pointing and cleaning — because each scales with a different quantity. We state the production-rate assumptions rather than hiding them, and we do not apply your crew rates, because substituting a published average for your actual rates makes the estimate less accurate.

Send addenda as they arrive and we update the affected quantities. On masonry this matters particularly: a changed reinforcing schedule can move grout across an entire building without altering a single wall dimension, and a changed window schedule changes deductions, lintels and cut waste together.

Delivery runs 24 to 72 hours depending on the size of the drawing set and the scope requested, and we work to your bid date. Pricing is a fixed fee per project quoted after we review your drawings, typically within about two hours. Residential work starts at $250; a single-trade commercial takeoff on a mid-size project typically runs $300 to $800. No fee is charged until you approve the quote.