Brickwork

Brick dimensions

A wall built in Flemish bond
Brick sizes are generally coordinated so that two rows of bricks laid alongside, with a mortar joint between them, are the same width as the length of a single brick laid across the two rows. That allows headers, bricks laid at 90 degrees to the direction of the wall, to be built in and tie together two or more layers, or wythes, of brick. The thickness of a brick wall is measured by the length of a brick, so a wall one brick thick will contain two layers of brick, one and a half bricks is three layers etc. A common metric coordinating size is 215 millimetres (8.5 in) x 102.5 millimetres (4.04 in) x 65 millimetres (2.6 in), which is intended to work with a 10 millimetres (0.39 in) mortar joint: 75 millimetres (3.0 in) course height, 215 millimetres (8.5 in) wall thickness etc. This is based on the earlier inch sizes. There are many different standard brick sizes worldwide, most with some coordinating principle