If a masonry wall is scheduled to be 36 inches high and the blocks are 6 inches tall, how many courses of blocks are needed with one layer of mortar?

To determine the number of courses of blocks needed for a masonry wall that is scheduled to be 36 inches high with each block standing 6 inches tall, it's essential to first consider the height of the block and then account for the mortar layer between the courses.

Each course of block measures 6 inches, so if we were only stacking the blocks without any joints or mortar, the height of 36 inches would require 6 courses (36 inches divided by 6 inches per block equals 6). However, when including the layer of mortar, which typically adds a small amount of height (often around 0.5 inches for standard mortar), the total height covered by each course effectively increases.

Calculating the effective height per course, including mortar, you are looking at approximately 6.5 inches (6 inches for the block plus 0.5 inches for the mortar layer). To find out how many of these effective courses you can fit into the total wall height of 36 inches, you would divide the total height by this effective height per course:

36 inches / 6.5 inches = approximately 5.54.

Since you cannot have a fraction of a course, you round up to the nearest whole number, which indicates that