Just read that a standard brick weighs about 4.5 pounds. I always thought they were closer to 7 or 8.

Found it in an old trade manual at the library while looking up something else. Makes you think about the sheer tonnage we move in a day. How many bricks do you guys figure you lay in an average hour on a straightforward run?

4 comments

4 Comments

hannah4001d ago

The dog food thing is exactly what gets me every time too! I buy the 40 pound bag and my brain just says "oh it's one bag, easy" but then I'm huffing and puffing carrying it from the car to the pantry. It's the same with cases of water, I grab four cases like they're nothing in the store and then regret everything by the time I get to the third floor apartment door. 500 bricks an hour is wild to think about, that's 2,250 pounds of just bricks moving around every single hour. No wonder bricklayers are always talking about their backs hurting.

michael6692mo ago

That weight difference adds up fast. I read a crew can lay about 500 bricks an hour on a good day. It's like how a single grocery bag feels light, but carrying ten up the stairs is a real workout. Our brains are bad at scaling up weight.

ray_martinez822mo ago

Yeah, it's that same thing with water bottles. One is nothing, but a whole case makes you rethink your life choices. Our brains just don't do math on the fly.

lewis.finley2mo ago

Man, you are so right about that. It's like our brains just shut down when we try to multiply the effort. I swear I do the same thing every time I buy a big bag of dog food.