The numbers people get wrong in both directions
Brick feels heavy in the hand and light on the pallet, and block is the other way around. A modular brick is around four and a half pounds, so a cube of 500 is about 2,250 pounds. A standard 8x8x16 block is in the region of 30 pounds, so a pallet of 90 is 2,700, and the same pallet in a heavier aggregate can be well over 3,000. Neither of those is a pickup load.
| Material | Typical unit weight | Common pallet | Pallet weight, roughly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Modular brick | 4 to 5 lb | 500 per cube | 2,000 to 2,500 lb |
| Utility brick | 9 to 11 lb | 300 per cube | 2,700 to 3,300 lb |
| CMU 8x8x16 | 28 to 38 lb | 90 to 108 | 2,500 to 4,100 lb |
| CMU 4x8x16 | 18 to 24 lb | 144 to 180 | 2,600 to 4,300 lb |
| Mortar, 80 lb bags | 80 lb | 42 bags | 3,360 lb |
These are ranges rather than figures, and they are ranges for a reason: the aggregate in a block changes its weight by a third, and every supplier stacks pallets to their own count. The fields on this page take your numbers because yours are the ones the truck will be carrying.
Tons lifted, which is the number nobody estimates
The total delivered weight tells you about the truck. The interesting figure for a person laying the wall alone is how much they will pick up. Two hundred square feet of block wall is 225 units at around 30 pounds, which is 6,750 pounds of block. Move it from the pallet to a stack near the wall and then from the stack to the wall and you have picked up 13,500 pounds, close to seven tons, over a weekend.
That is what makes the difference between a job that takes two days and a job that takes five. It is also why masons stack material within arm reach of the line before they lay anything, and why the mixer sits where the barrow does not have to be pushed uphill. Cutting the number of handlings from three to two removes 6,750 pounds, well over three tons, from that example without laying one block less.
Where a pallet can be put down
A standard pallet is 48 by 40 inches, so a loaded one concentrates one to two tons into about thirteen square feet. Driveways, lawns after rain, septic fields, basement slabs over a crawl space, decks and suspended garage floors all react differently to that, and some of them react expensively. Whether a particular surface will take it is a question about that structure and that soil, and it belongs with whoever knows them rather than with a general rule.
The practical part that is not a structural question: get the drop point decided before the truck arrives, because a boom truck that cannot reach where you wanted it will put the pallets wherever it can, and every foot it lands from the wall is a foot you carry the whole order.
Turning quantities into weight
If you do not have the unit count yet, the brick and block calculator gives it from wall size and joint, and the block wall calculator adds the grout, which is usually the heaviest single item on a reinforced wall. For a natural stone wall ordered by the ton rather than by the unit, the stone wall tonnage calculator works from the wall section. For general load and trip planning with mixed items, the moving load weight calculator is the broader version of this page.
Questions people ask
How much does a pallet of block weigh?
It depends on the block and on how the supplier stacks it, which is why this page asks rather than assumes. A common arrangement is 90 standard 8x8x16 blocks at roughly 30 pounds each, which is about 2,700 pounds plus a 40 pound pallet. Heavier aggregate pushes the same pallet past 3,400. Lightweight units bring it closer to 2,500. Ask the yard for the pallet count and weigh a block yourself; the two together settle it.
How many bricks can I carry in a pickup?
Divide the payload on the door sticker by the weight of one brick, then take some off for the pallet and for anything already in the bed. At four and a half pounds a brick, a thousand pound working payload is about 220 bricks, which is well under half a cube. The mistake worth avoiding is treating a half-ton designation as a payload figure. It is a class name, not a rating, and the sticker inside the door frame is the number that matters.
Does the calculator include the mortar sand?
Only if you enter it. Bagged mortar goes in as bags times bag weight, and bulk sand or gravel goes in as cubic yards times a density you supply. A cubic yard of damp masonry sand at 100 pounds per cubic foot is 2,700 pounds, so a single yard of sand outweighs most of the brick people order alongside it. Bulk deliveries are usually a separate truck for exactly that reason.
Why does the weight matter if the yard is delivering?
Because the delivery ends at the kerb or wherever the boom reaches, and everything after that is you. It also decides whether the truck can get onto the property at all, whether the drive will take it, and whether the drop point is somewhere a pallet can safely sit. Knowing the tonnage before you order is what turns a delivery into a plan rather than a surprise.
How do I reduce the amount of lifting?
Handle each unit fewer times. Have the pallets set as close to the wall line as the truck can reach, stack from the pallet straight to the working position rather than to an intermediate pile, and lay out the material before you mix so nothing has to be shuffled while mortar is going off. Cutting three handlings to two takes a third of the lifting out of the job, which on two hundred blocks at 30 pounds each is three tons.