Seeing the Light : An Anaheim company’s foam building blocks have many advantages but they’re a tough sell in the wary construction industry.

When contractor Paul DiGiovanni Jr. introduced his construction crew to ConForm--a new type of snap-together building block made of lightweight foam--the idea went over like a ton of bricks.

How could you build a wall out of something resembling a child’s toy or a flimsy Styrofoam ice chest? Construction crew workers shook their heads and stared in disbelief, hoping it was all a joke.

No one took the new product, which “looks just like Legos,” seriously at first, said DiGiovanni, vice president and co-owner of Surfside Builders Inc. in Santa Ana.

Now, however, DiGiovanni’s crews prefer ConForm to concrete because “it goes up faster and is less backbreaking to lift.” And the Santa Ana builder favors the lightweight polystyrene blocks because they require less manpower, lowering his labor costs. With ConForm, DiGiovanni says his bids on some projects have been up to 20% lower than rival firms.

Persuading a tradition-bound industry to accept a new product hasn’t been easy, said John Durso, president of CTS-ConForm Inc., an Anaheim firm that began making the hollow blocks in 1988. “Even after we dyed them light gray to make them look more like concrete,” Durso said, “people still said they looked like Styrofoam ice chests.”

ConForm blocks weigh less than one pound per square foot contrasted with 27 pounds per square foot for concrete. An entire pallet of ConForm weighs only 30 pounds and can be easily lifted overhead. An equivalent amount of concrete blocks, by contrast, weighs 500 pounds and must be moved by forklift.

ConForm blocks have interlocking teeth that snap together tightly and, unlike concrete blocks, require no mortar. The blocks can be scored and easily bent into curves. Spaces for windows and doors are made by cutting the blocks with a handsaw.

The building system includes plastic bridgework that slides in place between spaces to support steel reinforcement rods set in place by construction crews.

Once assembled, the hollow wall is filled with poured concrete. When the concrete has set, the structure can be finished with any material used on regular masonry, including brick, stone, wood and stucco.

The blocks have been used to build walls, foundations, basements, swimming pools and even entire buildings.

Durso said some customers have questioned whether the polystyrene blocks might pose an environmental problem.

“When non-biodegradable plastic foam is used to make throwaway packaging, it ends up in landfills where it doesn’t break down,” he said. “But the same properties that make it harmful as a throwaway material are an advantage when it’s used as a building material.”

Builders who have tried ConForm say it insulates concrete while it cures, helping it to harden more effectively. The foam-encapsulated concrete does not crack in extreme temperatures, and water pipes are protected from freezing. The blocks absorb noise, creating an effective sound-reduction barrier.

The product is not widely used in Orange County, where temperatures are less variable, but its noise reduction features have appealed to some large-scale builders.

Southern California Edison plans to use ConForm to build noise-reduction barriers between its power plants and nearby homes. And the state Department of Transportation approved the product for use along highways to reduce traffic noise.

ConForm is neither the first nor only company in the country to produce foam blocks. Similar products are manufactured by three other U.S. firms--Therma Manufacturing in San Jose, Agrisol in Florida; and Southwest Foam Form in New Mexico--as well as by several European companies.

The concept originated in Germany about 30 years ago and is more commonly used in Europe. Durso said the European versions, which are designed to comply with different building codes and are based on metric measurements, are not sold in the United States.

Despite its advantages over concrete blocks, the foam blocks have been slow to catch on in this country.

The product was first introduced in the United States by a now-defunct Canadian firm in the 1970s, and became popular with do-it-yourself builders. But so far, it is not routinely used by large-scale developers.

“It’s a classic marketing problem,” said Durso, who is targeting the top 100 builders in the country. “No one tried to develop a large-scale market by going after big builders,” he said. “And the construction industry doesn’t rush to try new products.”

Durso, who operated his own contracting firm in Colorado for eight years, thought he had left the construction industry for good when, in 1987, he and several other investors purchased a polystyrene packaging plant for $400,000 in Anaheim.

They invested an additional $1.2 million to renovate the plant, which manufactured polystyrene strawberry crates. But the project failed after a British firm didn’t deliver some needed machinery in time for the harvest. “And once they arrived, they (the machines) didn’t work,” he said.

Durso and his partners gave up on the strawberry crates and began to search for another product to make at the plant. As luck would have it, Durso met up with David Horobin, a British architect who was familiar with the European versions of foam building blocks. Horobin eventually joined Durso’s firm as vice president of marketing. Another investor, Arthur Lubin, is chief executive of the 13-employee firm.

Neither ConForm nor its competitors would reveal specific sales figures. Durso estimated, however, that the company will make a profit in 1990 on sales of about $1.5 million.

Cy Hotovec, construction manager at Citation Homes in San Jose, believes it’s just a matter of time before products like ConForm catch on in the industry.

“Sheetrock was around for over 15 years before anyone paid any attention to it,” he said. “It just takes an incredible amount of time for builders to accept a new material.”

Hotovec has used both ConForm and a similar product called Stay-in-Place, made by Therma Manufacturing in San Jose, to build home foundations and retaining walls.

ConForm has been used more extensively in Northern California, where greater temperature variations make insulation a priority. ConForm has been used in more than 100 building projects in the Bay Area, Durso said, where the recent earthquake “gave us a chance to prove to skeptics that ConForm holds up.”

And while ConForm catches on with some construction crews, Durso says workers are finding alternative uses for the foam blocks--such as keeping a few beers cold on a hot day. “I guess old habits are hard to break,” he said.