Material order for one floor: cement, steel, sand, aggregate and bricks, in lots
Order a whole floor's material on day one and some of it sits in the rain for two months. Order it bag by bag and the masons stand idle waiting for a truck. It works better to order in lots, one for each stage of work, and to check every load as it comes in.
By Bulan Sarkar · Updated
Take the quantities from your engineer's drawings and check them against the thumb rules. For a 1,000 sq ft floor that is about 350 to 500 bags of cement, 3 to 4 tonnes of steel, 10 to 14 brass of sand, 11 to 15 brass of aggregate and 8,000 to 10,000 bricks, wastage included. Then split the order into lots by stage: steel by bar size before the shuttering goes up, one full lot of cement, sand and aggregate two or three days before slab day, and bricks and cement in smaller lots while the walls go up. Never let cement sit longer than its three-month best-before. Check every load at the truck and write it in a delivery log.
Source: IS 4082:1996, Stacking and Storage of Construction Materials and Components at Site: clause 3.1 (storage layout planned for each stage of construction, with access for vehicles), 4.2 (cement), 4.5 (bricks), 4.8 (aggregates) and 4.13 (steel), checked Oct 2026.
The decision: plan and place the material order yourself?
Yes, if you are building on a labour-only contract or a part-material contract, where you buy the cement, steel, sand, aggregate and bricks and the contractor supplies the hands. This page turns the drawings into lots, deliveries and a log.
If your contract is a full turnkey rate per sq ft with material included, the contractor orders. Skip the lot planning, but keep step 6: ask for the cement batch marks, the steel test certificate and the truck measurements, and keep them with your copy of the bills.
The quantities of concrete and steel in every column, beam and slab come from a licensed structural engineer's drawings and bar bending schedule, never from thumb rules. Ask the engineer before you swap the cement type, the steel grade, the concrete grade or brick for block, and before you switch to ready-mix concrete.
The steps, in order
Get the floor's quantities from the drawings
Have ready:the structural drawings and the bar bending schedulethe BOQ (bill of quantities) if the engineer made one
Ask the engineer for the concrete volume of the columns, beams and slab on this floor, its grade, and the steel weight by bar size from the bar bending schedule. Then measure the wall lengths and heights from the plan for the brickwork. Run each one through the calculators: the concrete calculator gives cement, sand and aggregate for a volume, the steel calculator gives kg by bar size, and the brick calculator gives bricks, cement and sand for each wall.
Write every figure on the order sheet in the kit, with the unit the dealer sells in: bags, kg, brass (100 cft) and bricks.
Check the totals against the thumb rules
Have ready:the built-up area of the floor in sq ftthe totals from step 1
Our cost model gives these bands per sq ft of built-up area for an RCC-framed house with 9-inch brick walls, wastage included. They are rebuilt from CPWD's per-m³ coefficients, so treat them as a check on the drawings, not as an order.
Material Per sq ft For a 1,000 sq ft floor Cement 0.35 to 0.50 bags 350 to 500 bags TMT steel 3 to 4 kg 3 to 4 tonnes Sand 1.0 to 1.4 cft 10 to 14 brass Aggregate 1.1 to 1.5 cft 11 to 15 brass Bricks 8 to 10 8,000 to 10,000 If a total from step 1 is well outside its band, recheck the units first (cft against m³ is the usual mistake), then ask the engineer. A floor with many 4.5-inch partitions needs fewer bricks; an AAC block build needs about 15 to 20% less cement in the mortar.
Split the order into lots by stage
Have ready:the work programme from the contractora sketch of the site with the storage spots marked
IS 4082, the standard on stacking and storing material at site, asks for the storage layout to be planned around the materials needed at each stage of construction, with room for the trucks to get in and turn. For one floor that means three lots:
- Steel, all sizes, before the column and slab shuttering goes up, so the bar bender can cut from full lengths.
- Slab day: the cement, sand and aggregate for the beams and slab, delivered two or three days ahead, so nothing runs short while the concrete is going in.
- Walls: bricks in stacks of 2,000, and cement and sand in smaller lots that the masons use up within a few weeks.
Columns usually come out of the first part of the slab-day material or a small lot of their own. Write each lot on the order sheet with the date you need it on site.
Order cement you will use before its best-before
Have ready:a dry, leakproof shed or roomwooden planks to keep the bags 150 to 200 mm off the floor
IS 269 makes every bag of ordinary Portland cement show its week, month and year of packing and a best-before date three months later. Cement held past that is retested before use. So the lot size depends on how fresh the bags are when they arrive: a bag packed ten weeks before delivery has only about three weeks left.
For slab day, work out the bags from the concrete volume. CPWD's analysis of rates puts M20 at 8.0 bags per m³, so 14 m³ needs 112 bags; our concrete calculator, which adds 3% wastage, says 117. Ask the dealer for bags packed within the last few weeks. Stack them no more than 10 high, at least 600 mm from the walls, with a label showing the date they came in, and use them in that order (IS 4082 cl. 4.2).
Order steel by bar size and agree the billing basis
Have ready:the bar bending schedule, kg per bar sizea platform scale for the delivery check
Order steel per size from the bar bending schedule (8, 10, 12, 16 mm and so on), never as one tonnage. Turning the schedule into kg and bars shows the sums. Before you pay, ask whether the bill will be on actual weight from the weighbridge or theoretical weight from the bar count. A lot can pass the IS 1786 tolerance and still weigh 3 to 4% less than its theoretical figure.
IS 4082 cl. 4.13 asks for each size and length of bar to be stacked separately, so the bar bender can cut with the least waste, and for bars in long storage to sit at least 150 mm above the ground. A coat of cement wash keeps scaling and rust off near the coast.
Check every load at the truck
Have ready:a steel tape and a straight stickthe delivery log page from the kit
Each material has its own check, and each one has a guide on this site:
- Cement: batch mark, grade, 50 kg net and no hard lumps. How to check cement bags.
- Steel: bundle tags and cast number, test certificate, then weigh five bars of one size. How to check a steel delivery.
- Sand and aggregate: measure the load inside the truck body before it tips. How to measure a truck.
- Bricks: unload into stacks of 50 × 10 × 4, then lay 20 bricks in a row and measure it. How to check a brick delivery.
A load that fails goes back on the truck. Once it has been tipped or carried in, you have very little to argue with.
Keep a delivery log and reconcile at each stage
Have ready:the bills and weighbridge slipsthe order sheet from step 1
Write every delivery in the log the day it comes: date, material, quantity on the bill, what you measured or counted, batch or cast number, and who checked it. When a stage ends, compare what was delivered with what the drawings needed. A few per cent over is normal wastage. Much more than that means material was lost, stolen, or used on work the drawings didn't show, and the time to find out is before you order the next lot.
What goes wrong
Variants: what changes the steps
Ready-mix concrete on slab day
If the slab is cast with ready-mix concrete, lot 2 becomes an order for cubic metres of a named grade from the plant, not bags and brass. Ask the engineer to confirm the grade and volume, book the pump and the trucks, and keep the delivery tickets with the log. You still need cement, sand and aggregate for the columns and the walls.
A tight site with no shed
On a narrow city plot with no room for a store, order smaller lots more often and keep the cement in a room of the floor below, once it is cast and dry. Sand and aggregate can be stacked on the road side only if the local body allows it; ask before the first truck comes.
Building in the monsoon
Keep the cement lots small and wrap each stack in polythene that closes over the top (IS 4082). Damp sand bulks, so the same truck looks fuller after rain; measure it the same way every time and compare loads in the same condition.
AAC blocks instead of bricks
Lot 3 becomes blocks by the cubic metre, laid in the block maker's own jointing mortar or thin-bed adhesive. Our cost model puts the cement saving at about 15 to 20% against brick walls. Take the block count from the maker's data sheet; our brick calculator is for burnt clay bricks.
Tips and tricks
- Mark the storage spots on a sketch before the first truck arrives. IS 4082 asks for the layout to leave room for the trucks to get in and turn.
- Ask the dealer for the packing week of the cement before you order, not when the truck arrives.
- If two grades of steel are on site, paint the bar ends of each grade its own colour, as IS 4082 suggests, and stack every size apart. The bar bender finds the right bars faster and the wrong ones don't get cut.
- Keep sand and aggregate in separate stacks on a hard, clean patch so the sand doesn't pick up soil.
- Count the cement bags the evening before slab day, and again when the mixer starts.
- Staple the weighbridge slip, the batch mark photo and the truck measurements to each bill. When a figure is argued over later, you have the proof.
What we would do
We would order one floor in three lots: steel by bar size first, then the full slab-day lot of cement, sand and aggregate two or three days ahead, then bricks and cement for the walls in lots used within a few weeks. Check every load against its guide before it comes off the truck. Before the first order, check the floor's totals against the thumb rules on the house construction budget, so a wrong figure on the drawings shows up before you have paid for it.
Print the working copy
Material order sheet: one floor, three lots, from the Material Order Planner. One A4 page with tick boxes and blanks; it prints in black and white.
- 1. Quantities and the thumb-rule check
- 2. Order sheet
- 3. Lot dates
- 4. Delivery log
Frequently asked questions
How much cement, steel and sand do I need for a 1,000 sq ft floor?
Should I buy all the material for a floor at once?
How many cement bags do I need for slab day?
How long can cement be stored at site?
What is a brass of sand?
The source we built this on
Also used: IS 269:2015 bag marking and the three-month retest (RDSO/CAMTECH pamphlet, checked Oct 2026), IS 1786:2008 Tables 1 and 2, IS 1077:1992, CPWD Specifications 2009 Vol. 1 clause 1.27, and the CPWD Delhi Analysis of Rates 2023 item 4.1.2 coefficients behind our cost model (checked Jul 2026). The per-sq-ft bands are our cost model's estimates, not figures from any code.
This plan covers ordering, storage and delivery checks only. The concrete and steel in every column, beam and slab, and any change of grade, mix or material, are for a licensed structural engineer. Stand clear when steel bundles are lifted down and their bands are cut.