• Are you planning a green kitchen remodel?
  • The above photograph from a recent Odin's Hammer kitchen remodel contains the follow green building products.
  • Countertop: Made with recycled glass.
  • Paint: Low-VOC paint means you breathe in far fewer harmful chemicals when the paint is applied and for weeks after as it dries.
  • Cabinets: Made with bamboo and FSC certified wood from sustainably managed forests.
  • Windows: Double paned, low-e windows simply means far better insulation.
  • Lights: LED task lighting and compact fluorescent lighting is very energy efficient.
  • Hidden Assets:
  • Insulation: Blown-in cellulose insulation expands as it dries and fills every crack and crevice, resulting in very high thermal performance.
  • Radiant Heating: Under-floor radiant heating heats you directly and makes you feel comfortable while saving energy, rather than inefficiently heating the air around you.
  • Air Exchanger: Keeps the home's air fresh and free of pollution build up, it also helps to combat moisture build up which can lead to mold. A heat exchanger captures the heat from outgoing air and uses it to heat the incoming air.
  • Engineered Lumber: Made from rapidly renewable Aspen trees and from small wood pieces which previously were discarded in mills. These structural beams are longer, lighter, and straighter than virgin wood, without wasting such a precious resource.

It's amazing what can be green when you remodel. Think of the possibilities.

What do people envision when they think of a green building? Just a number of years ago they might have thought of a straw hut. These days they are just as likely to think of a high-tech skyscraper, like the Transbay Tower with its 50 foot tall integrated wind turbines. But, at the end of the day, we all come back to our homes. The majority of green features in a home won't look any different than a normal home, but they have an impact on your health and your home's carbon footprint.

We see the house as a system.

You are not just a set of parts, and neither is your house. When one ankle is sprained, the rest of the body limps and has to work harder. Similarly, if a home has insufficient insulation and is leaky, the furnace has to work harder. Thinking of the home as a whole system can save money and keep you healthy. Somewhat pricier insulation and windows may make a house so energy efficient that the furnace size can be cut in half. The air in your house moves as a system as well. Ideally, the clean air will be taken in and circulated through the house, then released. In less than ideal situations, this air is contaminated with combustion residue from furnaces, mold, dust, and VOCs – all of which have an impact on your health.

How we rate the green products we use when remodeling.

We consider the environmental impact of materials with regard to their air quality, energy efficiency, and resource efficiency. There is no single rating system that can tell us exactly which materials are best to use. Instead, we stay educated and make decisions based on the information and products available. We also use the concept of a “Green Budget” to help homeowners make decisions during remodeling. If cost were not an issue we could make any home green in every way. Since we don't live in a perfect world, we help homeowners identify their health, energy, aesthetic, and functional priorities are and design an overall plan to address them.

Air Quality: The quality of the air in your home directly affects your health. Products like paints, finishes, carpets, and shelves are often made with volatile organic compounds (VOCs.) These VOCs become airborne and swim around in the air waiting to be breathed in by your family; causing headaches, fatigue, and potentially dangerous ailments. We believe in using low-VOC materials for the health of our workers and for the health of those who will live in the home.

Energy Conservation: Our society faces a great challenge: meeting insatiable energy demands without degrading our environment. When we think of this challenge we think of erecting wind turbines and installing solar panels on every roof. While these are necessary, the invisible option is the cheapest: reducing the need for that energy in the first place. A home with passive solar design and tight insulation may use just half the energy of a similar home without these features.

Resource Conservation: We extract and dispose of resources every day. Building waste alone accounts for 15% of all landfill volume. Careful demolition of buildings often saves more than 90% of materials that can be recycled. While this saves resources it can also create significant savings on dumping fees. Using recycled materials in new construction reduces the need to extract virgin resources from our finite world.