A Question That Comes Up on Almost Every Site
Because we want to make sure that our clients correctly execute every step of the GFRG roof system installation process, it is crucial that we discuss the correct way to plan for the wall panel layout and installation before the prefabricated panels arrive at the construction site.
The discussions will also include provisions for service openings and the locations of load bearing walls. If these discussions take place earlier in the project life cycle, then the planning process can identify and address any potential obstacles, which in turn reduces the need for costly rework during the construction phase.
This comparison is not theoretical. It is based on how construction really happens in India.
Brick Construction: Familiar, but Full of Small Delays
The industry of brick masonry had been in operation for a number of years. Take a walk in a residential area. The essentials of a roof are bricks, cement, and plaster. The wide applicability of the technology makes it seem credible.
But on site, brick construction usually means:
- Materials arriving in parts and at different times
- Walls being built slowly, one brick at a time
- Waiting for curing before moving ahead
- Thick plaster work on both sides
- Regular checking to avoid uneven workmanship
Everything depends on labour and weather. If workers are short, work slows down. If it rains, schedules slip. One or two days of delay may not feel important, but over months, costs quietly increase.
Brick walls can be designed as load bearing walls, but they are heavy. That weight goes straight into foundations and columns. More weight means more concrete and more steel. These are not costs people notice immediately, but they stay locked inside the structure.
GFRG Panels: Building With a Clear Plan
Glass fibre reinforced gypsum panels are made in factories, not on open sites. Instead of constructing walls piece by piece, finished prefabricated wall panels arrive ready to be installed.
This changes the way a site works.
The panels are consistent, reinforced, and planned in advance. Walls go up faster, with fewer people, and with less dependence on daily labour availability.
Another simple but important point is finishing. GFRG panels already have a smooth surface, similar to gypsum wall panels or neat gypsum paneling. In most cases, heavy plastering is not needed. That alone saves time, money, and repeated rework.
When people calculate only brick cost, GFRG may look expensive. But when plastering, curing delays, wastage, and corrections are added, the difference becomes much smaller than expected.
Time Is Not Free on a Construction Site
Anyone who has worked on a site knows this: time quietly decides the final cost.
Brick construction moves in steps. Masonry finishes first, plaster starts later, and other work waits in between. If one activity stops, everything behind it stops too.
GFRG construction works differently. Since it is part of prefabrication and modular construction, walls can be installed quickly once panels reach the site. Planning becomes simpler. Delays reduce.
Faster progress usually means:
- Fewer labour payments
- Lower site expenses
- Earlier completion
For many projects, this time saving matters more than the material price itself.
Maintenance: Things That Come Up After a Few Years
Maintenance is where the difference really makes itself evident.
Talking about the issue of bricks, it can be noticed many times that there are minute cracks on the plastering part, water leakage after monsoons, and the requirement of patch work as well as painting again and again. Each problem appears trivial on its own account, but collectively the troubles escalate.
GFRG panels are made under controlled conditions and reinforced with fibres. This helps keep walls stable and reduces cracking. When installed properly, repair work is usually much less.
Over time, this saves money and avoids repeated disruption.
Noise, Comfort, and Daily Living
If I’m honest with you, nobody ever thinks about noise until they actually live in a place. When people visit a showroom or look at a sample wall, they don’t think, “How will my mornings be when someone downstairs starts talking loudly?” But once you move in, noise becomes one of the first things everyone notices louder than rent, louder than maintenance, louder even than paint quality.
I’ve seen this over and over on sites. With brick walls, it doesn’t matter how neatly we plaster or how carefully we finish sound somehow always finds a way. You might be trying to sleep early because you have to go to work the next day, and all you can hear is the neighbor’s TV booming through the wall. Or kids running upstairs, or even someone closing a door hard suddenly you realize the wall isn’t just a wall anymore; it’s a sound bridge.
That’s why people start asking for fixes extra plaster, double layers, little sealants here and there and honestly, most of these end up being half-solutions. You spend time, you spend money, and still the noise creeps through. It becomes one of those things that everyone complains about, but nobody really solves properly until now.
Here’s the thing with GFRG panels when these panels go up, there aren’t those little gaps and uneven spots that brick walls always seem to have. They come with a smoother surface from the factory, and they fit together cleanly. It’s like building with pieces that were cut to match exactly not improvising with bricks that never seem to line up perfectly. Because of this tight fit and consistent surface, noise has much less chance of sneaking through.
And if you choose to combine them with drywall for soundproofing, the difference becomes obvious the very first time you step inside. Building a wall around the inside of your house and treating it like a castle is not a functional solution for achieving adequate peace of mind, but it will provide you with a distraction-free environment, which can help you carry out your daily activities without constant interruptions and/or disturbances. For example, the distraction of high-volume audio systems in the apartments above yours, people walking/running on the upper level of your apartment building, car horns and excessive pedestrian noise, to name a few.. A room with good sound control feels calmer — not eerily quiet, but just peaceful in a normal way. You can rest, you can talk without raising your voice, you can actually focus on your life without thinking about how loud everything else is.
People only realize how loud their day-to-day life was when it suddenly isn’t anymore. And that feeling — of peace inside your own space that’s what comfort really means. And that’s why so many people who experience GFRG walls with soundproofing tell me it feels different not just better on paper, but better in real life.
Smarter Decisions, Earthquakes, Protection And Awareness
Earthquakes may not be a primary consideration in the design of a building (house/office) for the majority of people, however those that spend time in that area can tell you that over time you’ve seen the impact of even minor earth tremors. Numerous seismic zones in India leave the uncertainty of when an earthquake will occur. The bricks used to construct brick walls create an enormous weight, putting enormous amount of pressure on the columns, beams and foundation of the structure. That extra weight doesn’t just sit there and it becomes a problem when the earth moves, even slightly. Walls crack, plaster falls off, and suddenly you have repair work cropping up long before you expected.
This is where GFRG panels really make life easier. They are much lighter than bricks or many precast concrete walls, which means less load on the structure. On-site, it feels different too. When these walls are installed, you can see how the building sits more comfortably. During tremors, it moves just a little, instead of resisting violently like a heavy brick wall. That small difference can save a lot of headache later.
And it’s not just about the immediate shaking. Cracks form in the joints and openings between bricks; when brick walls begin to shift or move in their entirety due to weight from above or wind, cracks form that allow for water intrusion into this area, causing damage (cosmetic nature only) and further compounding the problem. Once cracked, the process of repairing a cracked wall doesn’t stop until effective repair is complete. Glass fiber reinforced gypsum (GFRG) paneling is produced and reinforced so can be treated as a single panel, regardless of numbers of connected panels that form the wall. Once installed properly, they don’t start cracking after the first monsoon or minor tremor. You don’t end up chasing patchwork every few months, which is a huge relief, trust me.
Less extensive use of construction resources can provide much longer lasting results than using materials that may be easily destroyed, damaged, and/or lost over time. It can also help provide homeowners and contractors (or other builders) with less costly future repair costs to their buildings, since many times buildings will develop cracks as time passes due to the use of materials that have been more likely to break, be damaged, or have parts replaced repetitively.
An Earthquake Preparedness Plan allows individuals who live in, work in, or occupy a structure a means to gain the knowledge, skills, and abilities to create an action plan to safely occupy a building during and after an earthquake event and provides individuals with a safe escape route from the building during and after an earthquake. GFRG panel construction, done right, gives you lighter, stronger, and safer walls. You may not notice it day one, but five or ten years later, the difference is clear. And that’s the kind of peace of mind every builder, owner, and engineer wants.
A Simple Cost Comparison
| Aspect | Brick Construction | GFRG Panels |
| Labour Dependence | High | Low |
| Speed of Work | Slow | Fast |
| Plaster Requirement | Heavy | Minimal |
| Structural Weight | High | Low |
| Site Wastage | High | Very Low |
| Maintenance | More | Less |
How People Actually Decide
Most decisions are not made on spreadsheets alone. People remember delayed projects, labour problems, and buildings that start showing issues too early.
Brick construction feels comfortable because it is familiar. Glass fibre reinforced gypsum construction feels different because it needs planning at the start. But once the building is complete, what matters is how quietly it performs over time.
GFRG panels are not a shortcut. They are simply a more organised way of building with fewer surprises.
At FRBL, the focus is not on selling a method. It is about helping people build with clarity. The best buildings are the ones you don’t have to keep fixing. They just work, year after year.
Where FRBL Fits Into Real Construction Decisions
The construction industry in India relies heavily on the guidance provided by the drawings and presentations associated with a project; however, in practice, the actual construction site is an unfinished area with heavy machinery operating around it, and the builder will be calculating the expenses associated with delaying the project. For example, one of the first questions a builder has when he is looking into building a project using glass fibre reinforced gypsum panel construction is not new technology but how can I use this glass fibre reinforced gypsum panel construction at the construction site?” This discussion will begin when FRBL becomes involved.
FRBL understand that moving from traditional brick to a GFRC Roof needs more description/detail, and to avoid confusion. FRBL’s staff work together with every team on a project (before the prefabricated panels arrive) to ensure that all parameters associated with determining a project’s accomplishment are addressed well before the time of shipment. Early in the process, FRBL Project Teams will talk about the Wall Layout and Openings for Routing Services, as well as any Design Constraints or Load Bearing Walls. By doing this way of thinking, Project Teams will be able to establish in advance of the time at which they will have to execute their work, so they will not experience any surprises or problems that would occur during installation. By planning for these items up front, multiple project errors will be avoided, so time will be saved, as well as there will not be costs associated with redo’s, etc., over time with no warning to the parties involved.
Finishing is another area where the difference becomes clear. Brick walls usually need heavy plastering on both sides, followed by patchwork and corrections. Gypsum wall panels manufactured with Fiberglass Reinforced Building Board (FRBL) will be 100% consistent with what is known as smooth with regards to the thickness of the plaster after being professionally installed. This means that if you utilize FRBL Gypsum Wall Panels for your buildings you should save on pest control collars, replacement due to damage, water damage, remediation of mold, and regularly scheduled maintenance over the long term.
GFRG panels are much lighter than other construction materials used in making building panel products. GFRG panels contribute less weight to the foundation of the building than other types of construction materials, and therefore reduce the amount of steel required to support the building over time. As the foundation of the building becomes lighter, it also becomes easier to load and unload the associated foundation supports. For example, GFRG systems will be used to complement both precast concrete panels and prefabricated concrete walls to create structures that are stable, well balanced and efficient; this is particularly important when buildings are located in earthquake-prone zones.
Another consideration in today’s buildings is comfort. When GFRG systems are integrated with drywall, the combined materials provide sound resistance and sound insulation to control everyday noise, which enhances the quality of living and working environments. In addition, the factory environment that produces the GFRG materials utilises green building materials, both because of their recycled content and because they reduce pollution by eliminating waste on the construction job site and by making the presence of a clean construction site easier to manage.
FRBL does not claim to be able to work miracles; however, FRBL does provide support to builders for increasing the performance levels of their buildings by reducing the amount of time that is required for completing new construction, repairing damaged buildings, and subsequently regretting that the buildings were completed.
Conclusion
There are numerous factors that affect the decision to use either GFRP or bricks as a building material and such factors, along with many additional variables of importance, must be considered prior to selecting one method over another.
Long-term users of brick construction have developed confidence in this method; however, this confidence does not negate the fact that many longstanding users also have reservations about the durability of brick buildings. A majority of users have had positive experiences over the years or decades with their brick buildings, however, they also have a wealth of knowledge regarding the disadvantages that can be associated with the use of bricks as a building material. The variables that should be evaluated in determining which material to use to construct a building include and do not include, how long it will take to construct a building with bricks in comparison to GFRP, the weight of bricks, the ongoing maintenance of the walls due to the plaster being cracked or peeling from the outer walls of brick buildings, future costs of maintaining brick buildings and repairing brick buildings (very high) equal to the cost of building a new building with GFRP or other materials. These variables all are included in the overall expense of constructing and owning a building constructed with bricks.