Masonry piers are normally provided in residential buildings to support the ends of beams. Once the length of a wall becomes less than 3 times its thickness it is called a pier (or column) rather than a wall. Often when new openings are formed in walls, there is very little of the wall left and it becomes necessary to build a pier.

If the beam reaction is heavy, the pier is normally built with engineering bricks, either as a 225mm square pier or a 327mm square pier. Sometimes piers are kept as a feature, but normally they are plastered if they are inside. This design assumes we haven't already designed the beams which the pier will support.

We need the following information to design a masonry pier:

architectural layouts or sketch drawings with dimensions, so we can work out all the loadings on the pier

details of the type of construction (concrete or timber floors etc)

Design information

All design work is carried out in accordance with BS5268 (The structural use of masonry).

The calculations provided will be suitable for Building Regulation approval.