Green Hammer

I sent an e-mail and they quickly got in touch with me to schedule a phone call with a rep. A few days later we talked for an hour and he gave me a rough estimate and said he'd like to come for a site visit. And he did. He spent an hour talking about two different options with us and continually attempted to guide us toward what he would do with our situation to fit his tastes rather than what we wanted. Fine. We would be willing to keep the work going in the right direction but it got tiresome. He made a bunch of pictures and said he'd follow up in a few weeks with an estimate. We haven't heard from him since (and gave the project to someone else).

I'd worked with these people on a project at a previous house, and had really enjoyed working with them. I'd readily work with them again, but on a large project like this one, I would play a very prominent role as "manager" of my own project interfacing with them. Put everything you want into clearly composed emails, so there is a written track record. But I think that is just a common-sense good approach with any project such as mine. On both projects, the work was done with high quality. And all Green Hammer personnel were pleasant, well-informed, willing to readily share information about their work and helpful. GH made this big complex project relatively easy. There were just a couple things that went awry in the project... Wiring for a 2d floor smoke alarm was NOT connected to an available nearby circuit dedicated solely for all house smoke alarms, but was instead wired into another circuit in the house. I had mentioned that "smoke alarm" circuit in conversation with the GH project lead, but I should have been a bit more formal by putting that in writing in an email etc. Or I should have been present to go over this detail with the electrician myself. On both this and the earlier project, the intent was for re-roofing to also include fixing drooping roof ends which over the years had pulled corbels out of their positioning on the house exterior. And in both projects, this fix was not implemented as desired. In the earlier project GH roofing sub-contractors did make an IMPROVEMENT. In the 2d project that is the specific focus of this review, it's more complicated. Historic district restrictions prevented the most obvious approaches that might have been applied. After the roof was done and I mentioned that the roof end drooping hadn't been fixed, GH said that the mechanism they'd planned to apply didn't seem workable after they had the roof off. So apparently there was simply a decision to make no improvement at all. If I were to engage GH for similar work again fixing drooping roof ends, I would be VERY tenacious and visible with them about this roofing "fix". I'll repeat however that my review is very positive and I'd work with GH again. But it makes sense to play a strong "project manager" role yourself while interfacing with them. Maintain knowledge and clear written communications about your details, and follow up to make sure those are understood and implemented. But I think this would be true in EVERY big project.

I was very happy with them, they were proffesional, and very clean. I would recommend.

This was our first big home renovation on a newly purchased 1926 Irvington house. Greenhammer was very professional and responsive from start to finish. They provided excellent design-to-completion guidance and overall the complex project with many moving parts was finished without any major setbacks or headaches. And honestly, this was more than I expected. The project schedule and pricing was very transparent and changes we asked for half way through (for example, we decided to remove the chimney), were quickly accommodated. Overall I thought we thought the subcontractors did strong quality work and Greenhammer project lead stepped in immediately whenever there was a quality issue. I felt they had our backs the whole time.

Very well. Very complete and timely. Although we did not use them in this project I wouldn't hesitate to hire Green Hammer in the future.

It went great. They did everything I needed done. I would recommend them to others.

They were excellent! They pay attention to detail. We hired them because of their focus on energy conservation and green products.

I liked that they were local and that they were green. There was kind of a mix up because the guy who was in charge of our account quit in the middle of it, so there was this kind of overlap where there wasn't any work done for three days and no one knew what was going on. They made up for it and gave us a discount. They were pretty professional and did a very good job. They had some very good artisans and people that knew what they were doing. They were also here on time.

Not too well. They were nice enough when we discussed the problems, but they did not deliver. I think their reputation is overinflated.

Overall they did an excellent job. I will definitely use them again.

They did an excellent job as they methodically went through all the different energy uses of my home. It took about four hours to do the energy assessment and about an hour and a half to meet with the representative to review their recommendations. The report was thorough and representative, a passionate but very pleasant environmentalist, was very thorough and knowledgeable about the particular features of my home's energy assessment report. I didn't do the recommended work right away because other expenses piled up but I'm glad to have the report and assessment. The prices for contracting the work through Green Hammer were fair, but on the high side.

We have an old 1909 Dutch Colonial home that has no exterior insulation. Green Hammer came to the house, inspected it, and told us exactly what 3 other companies had said: that it would not be cost effective to insulate our home. Because of it's odd construction and big sun porch in the upstairs, even if insulated, the heat loss would remain. They took a great deal of time to think of solutions and I appreciated their honesty even though it was bad news.

From the start, every person I dealt with was very qualified and professional. This is an amazing company.

Green Hammer took what is normally a very complicated and stressful process and made it easy and fun. We loved the individuals we worked with who were pleasant, punctual and cleaned up after themselves. They recycled most all of the construction debris and were mindful of existing vegetation. They did a lot of research on how to construct our home which is made out of unusual materials with a geothermal heat pump and radiant heating system and kept us informed of the options and associated costs. The quality of the construction is excellent. They have returned to do small projects since the initial construction of our home with the same great results. I wish we had the money to build another house because working with them was a rewarding experiance.

Their punctuality and professionalism stood out. I was happy with them.

They were professional. They were connected to all the rebates and made it easy for us. They were here when they said they would be and they handled the subcontractors well. They were all around excellent.

Jesse oversaw everything very well. He was timely and communicated regularly, especially about several added in costs. I felt like he did more than his job expectations, despite his busy schedule.

It was very clear. They were very responsive and quick to get back to us. We just liked their attitude of how they approached the work. They gave us some very creative ideas on how to save money. So we would probably be working with them. Their attitude seems to be really for the best interest of the person that’s hiring them versus the company making the most money that they could fake. So I would say that the one thing very attractive about the people we’ve talked to was that they really seemed, their attitude really seemed to be towards doing the best work that they can do and also do it in an environmentally sustainable way versus making the most money they can make.

They were part of an energy audit. We paid an energy advocate to come in and sign off on the job after it was finished. This particular job was kind of a pain in the rear for them because they subbed out some of the ceiling work. One of their subs wasn't very thorough and the management of the project wasn't timely due to other problems that occurred. Overall the project manager didn't keep the job in line as well as he could have. It was partially the sub's fault. The sub did a horrible job on the duct ceilings so they had to come in and fix it and then they had to come back and redo it again. They redid it once and then had to come and do some touchup work the second time. They had to redo the work until we were satisfied because we had the advocate and we wouldn't sign off on any of the payment paperwork until we were satisfied. It was a pain for them but really good for the consumer. We only had one bid. The majority of the price was the furnace installation. Some of the quality was good and some of it was bad. A lot of the issues with Green Hammer were the subs' fault. They used garbage subs. The work was pretty average.

They were professional and punctual with their work. They did a good job of removing existing siding boards and installing insulation then reinstalling siding. The only issues I had was that they forgot to reinstall one board and drilled a couple more holes through the siding than originally agreed on. Overall I would recommend them.

They were expensive. I had some other companies give me bids and they were less expensive. But, Green Hammer seemed to be very thorough and they took a lot of things into consideration that other companies did not. They are great.

Green Hammer is an excellent company. We were treated with courtesy and professionalism throughout the process. They came in on time and on budget. They are extremely knowledgable about all phases of construction and energy efficiency. Their subs were excellent. We are very pleased, and we would hire them again without question. They worked extremely hard to get a good result for us, and we are very happy with our remodeled house.

In all three cases, the work was done with attention to detail and explanations of the processes being used to determine the overall "score" for the house...and to determine where problem areas existed. Scott, Andrew, and Tyler discussed the testing processes, results, and helped us determine just where our main issues were. They were great with suggestions about areas with problems and what was serious and what wasn't. They discussed the test numbers and what those numbers meant. They worked to make sure everything needed was done with as little interruption to our lives as possible. While they were not responsible for the work that was done, the testing information they found helped determine where the biggest issues were and what steps we might discuss with the contractor to improve energy efficiency. They also made us aware of the need for CO2 detectors and at their recommendation we also added an HRV unit to deal with potential moisture issues as the house was better sealed.

The overall experience was great. We contacted Green Hammer because of their reputation for green building expertise and were not disappointed. Their knowledge and professionalism was superb -- helping sort out various product choices and giving us candid assessments of what would work best for us and our home. They were exceedingly careful in making sure we were getting what we wanted in terms of window aesthetics including different performance characteristics for north vs. south facing windows. They take pride in their work, craftsmanship, and customer service -- and it shows. Beyond that, they were simply a pleasure to work with. We wouldn't hesitate to work with them again.

Our overall experience was not great. Steven was supposedly the general contractor on the job and there was poor coordination with the subcontractors. In addition, he was too hands-off and seemed busy with too many other jobs. The floors looked great once they were installed and the quality of the work was pretty good, but we were constantly having to track him down to find out when certain parts of the job were going to be completed. We finally took over the management of the projects ourselves.