What is hard conversion in the block industry?
Hard conversion involves changing the actual size of a concrete masonry unit. When a 7 5/8″ x 7 5/8″ x 15 5/8″ block is converted into metrics, the result is 193.675 mm x 193.675 mm x 396.875 mm. To make the metric numbers easier to work with, they could be rounded and the block could be resized. This is hard conversion. However, changing the size of the block would potentially require millions of dollars of retooling molds and manufacturing equipment for the concrete masonry industry to create new shapes and sizes based on metric measurements. For this reason, the industry has adopted soft conversion.
