Waal Size Brick: Dimensions and Cost

What is a Waal size brick?

A Waal size brick measures 210 x 100 x 50 mm (about 8-1/4 x 4 x 2 inches), the most common wall brick used across the Netherlands and much of northern Europe.

The name comes from the Waal river in the Netherlands, where many of the brickworks that first produced this format were located. It also appears as waalformaat or WF on European spec sheets.

In the US, the closest match is the modular brick, which runs 7-5/8 x 3-5/8 x 2-1/4 inches actual. Both sizes exist for the same reason: a brick a mason can lay one-handed, sized to keep coursing on a clean module.

Waal brick vs US modular and UK standard sizes

What counts as the standard size of a brick depends on where you are building. Each region settled on a slightly different module, though all land in a similar range once you compare actual dimensions.

The typical wall brick, whichever standard it follows, lands close to 200 to 215 mm long, 90 to 100 mm wide, and 50 to 65 mm high. To turn any of these sizes into a bricks-needed count and cost for your own wall, the brick wall calculator runs the numbers once you pick length, height and brick size.

How many Waal size bricks per square foot

Waal format walling uses a coordinating size of 220 x 60 mm once a standard 10 mm mortar joint is added on the bed and perpend. That works out to about 75 bricks per square meter, or roughly 7 per square foot, for a single half-brick (100 mm) wall.

That figure lines up closely with the US modular brick, which covers about 6.75 to 7 per square foot with its own 3/8 inch joint. In practice, the two formats need almost the same number of units for the same wall area.

A full one-brick (double wythe, 200 mm) wall roughly doubles the bricks per square meter, the same rule that applies to a double-wythe modular wall in the US.

How tall is 3 courses of brick?

Three courses of standard US modular brick equal exactly 8 inches, since each course is 2-2/3 inches high including its 3/8 inch bed joint. That 8-inch, three-course rule is one of the most used shortcuts in US masonry layout.

Waal size brick uses a different module. With a 50 mm brick and a 10 mm bed joint, one course is 60 mm, so three courses come to 180 mm, close to 7-1/16 inches.

Either way, courses stack predictably: divide your wall height by the course height, 2-2/3 inches for modular or 60 mm for Waal, to get how many rows of brick you need to lay.

Cost to build a brick wall in 2026

In the US, standard clay bricks run about 0.35 to 0.90 dollars each in 2026, and a fully installed brick wall, material and labor together, costs about 10 to 45 dollars per square foot, averaging near 25.

Brick size barely moves that number. Labor, not the brick itself, drives most of the cost, since masons are paid by the hour and a wall built from any standard-size brick takes a similar number of hand-laid courses.

In the Netherlands, Waal format bricks cost about 0.20 to 0.70 euros each, and full masonry work runs roughly 80 to 180 euros per square meter, or from about 25 euros per square meter for a simple single-wythe garden wall.

For a full breakdown of what pushes the US price up or down, see brick wall cost per square foot.

Ordering brick for a wall project

Waal format brick is a European product, and most US brick yards do not stock it. If you are building in the US, order standard modular brick instead, since it covers almost the same area per square foot and every US mason works with it daily.

If you specifically need the Waal look or size, imported or custom-cut brick is the usual route. Confirm actual dimensions and joint width with the supplier before you order, since sizes vary a little by manufacturer.

Whichever size you settle on, run your wall length and height through the cost to build a brick wall guide alongside the calculator to budget the full job, not just the brick count.

Frequently asked questions

References

• Brick (Wikipedia)
• BIA Technical Note 10: Dimensioning and Estimating Brick Masonry
• Glen-Gery: Brick Dimensions & Sizes Chart
• ASTM C216: Standard Specification for Facing Brick
• De Rijswaard: Waal Format Brick

Related