Owners of 1910 home share about Hammer & Hand home performance retrofit.
Remodeling is about transformation – taking a space and reshaping it to serve the needs and wants of today’s inhabitants. Historically, our remodel work has focused on form, function and the fusion of aesthetics, volumetrics and flow. And that’s still the case today. But with our deepening engagement with advanced building science and home performance, the “energy remodel” has become key to our palette.
Energy remodels are still about transformation, but a transformation in comfort, indoor air quality and efficiency. And while these qualities can’t usually be seen by the naked eye, their impact on the experience of a space can be just as profound as that of a beautiful home redesign.
(NOTE: ‘traditional’ remodels present excellent opportunities for concurrent energy upgrades, of course. So we often perform energy remodels in parallel with kitchen, bath, and whole house remodels.)‚Ä®
I spoke today with Luke, a recent home performance client who had us conduct an energy remodel of his 1910 home in Portland’s Kenton neighborhood. He was effusive about the impact that the work had on his house and his experience at home.
“Our house is super warm now. It made such a difference,” Luke said of the work. “After five years of living here we can finally say ‘this is the way our house was meant to feel.’ It’s nice to relax at home as opposed to just survive.”
Luke and his wife had been suffering through cold winters in the home’s un-insulated attic addition. “It was just horrible. My wife’s a writer, so she was basically working in bed because it was the warmest place in the house,” Luke told me.
When the couple discovered the Clean Energy Works Oregon program, its financing made the transformation of their home feasible. CEWO assigned Hammer & Hand to perform the initial home energy assessment of the house, and we continued on throughout the retrofit process.
“When Hammer & Hand’s analyst came for the assessment, he was both really knowledgeable and extremely excited about the work,” Luke said. “I had no doubt that he totally believed in what he was doing and in the possibilities of what the future could hold for the industry.”
“That got me excited,” said Luke. “Throughout the process, everyone was so proud to work for Hammer & Hand. It made me happy to support the work.”
“In addition to the huge change in our house,” Luke said, “the thing that made me happiest was seeing people be excited about what they do and really have faith in their company and their work.”
– Zack
P.S. Learn more about our energy retrofits.
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