Sustainable Living
Green building comes naturally to Connie and Dennis McCullah of Odin's Hammer. The two native Nebraskans grew up in an area where people live in tune with nature. Connie raised two young boys on a Wyoming ranch sixty miles from the nearest town. Later, she built a passive solar home in her hometown Alliance, Nebraska. For his part, Dennis has been building and remodeling homes in the Bay Area since the 1980's, first as a homeowner, then as a carpenter, and today as the owner of Odin's Hammer. Since buying the company in 1985, he has pursued his interest in healthy building, focusing on energy efficiency, indoor air quality and resource management. Dennis and Connie sat down recently to discuss green building, their vision for the future of Odin's Hammer, what's required to take a company green, and a unique project they are undertaking to bring green construction back to their home state.
What's your background?
How did you get interested in green building?
Connie: I was born and raised in the panhandle of Nebraska and went to college in Colorado. But it was really while living on the ranch in Wyoming that I developed the desire to live sustainably, totally independent of the outside grid. After that I returned to Nebraska and decided to build a passive solar home. The experience of financing, building, and living in that home gave me a real sense of every aspect of green building.
Dennis: After growing up in Nebraska and attending the University of Wyoming, I came to Berkeley to pursue photography. After purchasing a home, I remodeled it, lifting the original building, and inserting a new floor underneath with a passive solar southern exposure. Other people liked my idea, and asked if I could do the same thing for them. I always enjoyed building, and I soon found myself working steadily as a carpenter. I worked for Odin's Hammer and in 1985 I had the opportunity to purchase the business.
Was your initial vision to make Odin's Hammer a green company?
Dennis: Green construction was a natural for Odin's Hammer and for us. Connie and I have lived our lives like that. We love gardening, cooking, and farmer's markets. Many of my aunts and uncles were farmers, and I'd work for them in the summer. We're used to the wide open spaces, clean air, and sunshine. We're used to being healthy and we've always used those ideas as a basis for our business. We want people to live in healthy homes. We like things to be energy efficient. Well, one thing led to another, and when the concept of green building came up, Connie and I discovered that we've been doing this forever. Almost without thinking about it, we've been green builders for years, so we decided to market ourselves that way.
What do you mean when you say you're a 'green builder'?
Connie: A green builder looks at the whole house as a system. When we do remodels, whatever change we make in one room doesn't just affect that room, it affects the way the whole house works. Whether it's the paints we use, or the air exchange systems we install, it changes the entire house. A big new fan in the kitchen, for example, can affect air circulation in all the rooms in a house. When you start looking at the whole house as a system you ask clients a whole new set of questions. Is that big kitchen remodel going to make your living room warmer? Nope, you'll need double pane windows or insulation for that. So, perhaps instead of spending all of this money on this huge new kitchen, let's phase it in and think about changing out some of the windows in the baby's bedroom which gets really cold. We started having these conversations about the whole space the clients lived in, how healthy it is, what kinds of changes they wanted to make, and why they were doing it.
Dennis: And once you start having these kinds of conversations with a client, the finances come in to play as well. Your budget might not allow you to redo the entire house, but you can do smaller things that make you a lot more comfortable today, and set the stage for bigger changes later.
What does it take to take a company green?
Connie: There has to be one person in that company who is passionate about green products and processes who will always bring it to the forefront. It doesn't have to be the owner, it can be anyone who is coming in and saying what are you doing green here? Have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? Passion plays a big part in making the change.
Dennis: A few years ago it was difficult to find staff interested in green building. People would come in and say, 'Oh that green stuff, I don't really believe in it.' So we'd set them down and explain, 'Well, do you know why we use low VOC paints?' 'No why?' 'Because you're the one who puts paint on the walls, and those VOCs (Volitile Organic Compounds) are bad for your health. We want you to be healthy. We want you to stay around. We're putting a lot of effort and training into you, and part of being a green contractor is ensuring that our employees' atmosphere is as healthy as our clients'.'
Connie: Dennis and I had a passion for this to begin with, but one of the first things we did to move the company green, was to educate our crews. We took the time to tell them, 'This is what we're going to do. This is how we're going to market ourselves. We have a vested interest in your health. We don't want you carrying these toxic products on your clothes into you homes where your baby might pick them up.' So we brought them into this from the start. Anybody who wants to take their company green, whether it's construction or anything else, has to get their employees on board to make it happen.
Dennis: Everybody who works for Odin's Hammer becomes a certified green building professional. That's one of the things we require. We'll pay for the training and any classes they want to attend, but they have to get certified. Over the years, as we got more involved in green building and training other contractors, we've developed a strong pool of people who are now certified as green building professionals. Our production crews need to be able to understand why we're using the products we use because our clients expect us to help them make green decisions.