Construction material calculator: cement, sarya, bricks, sand and crush for your house

This construction material calculator estimates the cement, sarya (steel bars), bricks, sand and crush for a grey-structure house from its covered area. For a 5 marla double storey of 1,975 sq ft with load-bearing brick walls, it gives about 474 to 612 cement bags, 2.8 to 3.8 tonnes of sarya and 45,400 to 59,300 bricks. At Lahore’s September 2026 prices, that is Rs 29.2 lakh to Rs 40.3 lakh of materials.

The quantities are rules of thumb published by Pakistani contractors and builders, not a bill of quantities (BOQ) from an engineer. Use them to plan a budget and to check whether a contractor’s material list is in the right range.

How does the construction material calculator work?

It multiplies your covered area by a low and a high rule for each material, then prices the result at your city’s official prices.

1. Covered area. Add up every floor, including the mumty (the stair room on the roof). The three buttons use 1,975 sq ft for 5 marla, 3,300 for 10 marla and 5,950 for 1 kanal, the areas in Zameen’s breakdowns with Alpha Construction’s quantities. Type your own figure if your plan is different.
2. Structure. Pick whether brick walls carry the load (with RCC slabs and lintels) or the house has a full RCC (reinforced concrete) frame of columns and beams. A full frame uses about twice the steel.
3. Quantities. Covered area × the low and high rule per sq ft for each material, shown in the table below.
4. Cost. Each quantity × the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) price for your city: per 50 kg bag of cement, per tonne of steel, per 1,000 bricks and per 100 cft truck of sand or crush.
5. Total. The five costs added up, and that total divided by your covered area to give a materials cost per sq ft.

Not sure of your covered area? Convert your plot with the marla to square feet converter. Under LDA’s 2019 building regulations, a house on a 5 to under 10 marla plot in an approved scheme may cover up to 75% of the plot, so two floors on a 1,125 sq ft plot come to about 1,688 sq ft before the mumty (our calculation).

How much cement, steel and bricks per square foot?

These are the rules the calculator uses, per sq ft of covered area, for a double-storey grey structure with no wastage added.

Most of these figures are our division of each source’s whole-house quantity by its own covered area. For example, Zameen’s 5 marla breakdown lists 525 cement bags for 1,975 sq ft, which is 0.27 bags a sq ft.

The split into two structure types is our grouping. Zameen, Alpha Construction and Graana don’t say whether their houses are load-bearing or framed. Their steel, about 1.5 kg a sq ft, only fits brick walls with RCC slabs and lintels, so we put them in the first column. Avenir says its figures are for an RCC frame with masonry walls. Toolsfluent doesn’t say, and its figures sit with Avenir’s.

Four Indian guides for RCC-frame houses give 0.38 to 0.50 bags of cement and 3 to 4.5 kg of steel per sq ft. That agrees with the RCC column, so we used them as a cross-check only. The Pakistani quantities were published between 2020 and 2026. Prices change a lot over that time; quantities per sq ft change little.

Why do some calculators say 8 bricks per square foot?

Because that figure counts bricks per square foot of wall, not of floor. A 9-inch wall of standard 9 x 4.5 x 3 inch bricks takes about 9 bricks per sq ft of wall face, and a 4.5-inch wall about 4.5, according to Avenir’s brick calculator.

A house has much more wall than floor. One Indian guide (InfraLens) counts about 2.4 sq ft of wall for every sq ft of floor in its own example, and its own count reaches about 17,600 bricks for 1,000 sq ft. It then settles on about 9,000 and a rule of 8 to 10. The Indian rules also assume an RCC frame with thin infill walls. Pakistani houses mostly use 9-inch walls, and brick footings and parapets add more.

Pakistani estimates divided by covered area agree with each other: 19 to 22 bricks a sq ft for an RCC frame and about 23 to 30 for load-bearing walls. Smaller houses sit at the high end because they have more wall per sq ft of floor. We left out one Pakistani blog’s 35 bricks, because the same publisher’s calculator says 19.

Worked example: how much material does a 5 marla house need?

A 5 marla double storey in Lahore with 1,975 sq ft covered and load-bearing brick walls, at PBS prices for September 2026:

That is about Rs 1,479 to Rs 2,040 of materials per sq ft of covered area. For steel, the sum is kg ÷ 1,000 × the tonne price: 2,765 ÷ 1,000 × Rs 231,380 = Rs 639,766. The calculator rounds bricks to the nearest 100 and sand and crush to the nearest 10.

Zameen’s own breakdown for the same 1,975 sq ft house lists 525 bags, 3,000 kg of steel and 50,000 bricks, all inside these ranges. With a full RCC frame instead, the same house comes to 751 to 869 bags, 5.5 to 7.1 tonnes of steel and Rs 38.5 lakh to Rs 49.5 lakh of materials.

Where do the prices come from?

All prices are PBS’s urban averages for September 2026, the latest month it had published when we checked on 18 October 2026. The calculator has 12 cities. For the full table, other cities and labour rates, see construction material prices in Pakistan.

Two products differ from what the quantity sources assume:

• Steel grade. PBS prices half-inch Grade 40 bars. Zameen, Avenir and Toolsfluent assume Grade 60, which costs more, so the steel cost here is on the low side.
• Sand and crush. PBS prices “black pit” sand and “rata” bajri. Zameen’s Lahore breakdowns specify Ravi and Chenab sand and Margalla and Sargodha crush, which cost differently.

What the calculator doesn’t tell you

• It isn’t a BOQ. Avenir says it plainly: “Only a BOQ from your structural drawings gives an accurate count.” Your design, soil, wall thickness and number of columns change the quantities. We found no official Pakistani rule for materials per sq ft from the Pakistan Engineering Council, the Punjab C&W department or a university.
• No wastage. The sources suggest adding 5 to 10% for bricks and 2 to 5% for cement and steel.
• Materials only. Labour, transport, brick ballast and earth fill, plumbing, wiring and all finishing are left out. For a full cost per sq ft, see house construction cost in Pakistan, and for floors, which marble is best for flooring.

Planning portions to let out? Read building a house to rent out before the drawings are final, since separate entrances and meters change the build.

More guides: construction material prices, marla to square feet, Property.