Little Green Homes Keeps on Growing

At a time when the construction industry in New Hampshire is losing jobs, Little Green Homes of Greenland is bucking the trend by doubling size of its workforce.

“We’ve grown from the three to six employees in the last year,” according to Chris Redmond, an architectural designer from Newmarket who started the company 4.5 years ago with his business partner Jeff Stacy, a builder from Portsmouth.

“We started off with just my partner and me, plus a few subs, but we’ve always wanted to hire full time, steady guys, not just summer help,” Redmond explained. “Now we’ve grown from one to two crews, so we can handle multiple projects.”

The duo attributes Little Green Homes success in part to their ability to offer customers a complete package of design and build services for custom new homes, renovation and addition projects.

“Our customers always know the designer and builder are on the same page,” said Redmond. “We bring all members of our team, including engineers and subcontractors, together during the design phase to make sure everybody fully understands the project before construction begins.”

 “People like the process that we offer… and when it comes to green building, it’s nice to know that both your designer and builder are passionate about that type of work,” he added.

Little Green Homes focus on green building has also helped to set them apart from the competition.

“We took kind of a risk with the name by putting ‘green’ right in it,” Redmond acknowledged. “We really believed it was the direction people were moving in. We also believed it was the only way to build.”

It was a gamble that paid off.

“In the beginning, people tended to think of ‘green’ as expensive,” he recalled. “Once we explained it to them, they understood that ‘green’ really means durable, quality and energy efficient building.”

“Now people call us because we are ‘Little Green Homes’,” Redmond reported.
“People just get it. They definitely seek us out for the green element.”

Today, Little Green Homes has built an impressive portfolio that includes work on a Portsmouth, NH home that was the 218th in the nation to achieve a LEED Platinum rating. The company takes pride in ensuring that every project is “built weatherized”, as Redmond puts it.

“All the additions, renovations and new construction projects we do are built in a way that they shouldn’t need future weatherization,” he said. “We just did a job in York where we added 25 percent to the size of the home, but all the energy saving improvements we incorporated mean their heating bill should not get any higher. They found us through the Green Alliance a few years ago.”

As Redmond noted, Little Green Homes is a Business Partner in the Green Alliance, a group that works to promote sustainable business practices in the Seacoast region by offering consumers discounts and information on local green products and services. Redmond and Stacy provide GA members with a 15 percent discount on design fees for a design and build contract, plus a free green building consultation with one hour of free design time.

Learn more about Little Green Homes: www.littlegreenhomes.com

Find out about the Green Alliance: www.greenalliance.biz/join