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South Mountain Company

Martha’s Vineyard’s integrated design/build company

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Dear Reader,
This blog is now an archive. John Abrams (Founder of South Mountain, author of this blog, and a book of the same name) retired on December 31, 2022. All posts published up until this date are preserved below.

For updates on John's next chapter, visit abramsangell.com.

For updates on South Mountain's second act, subscribe to our newsletter using the form below.

The Gift that Goes on Giving

By John Abrams | March 18, 2010

In the last post I talked about the upcoming Lake/Hodgson Deep Energy Retrofit open house.  It was a big success, a perfect event.  On a gorgeous blue-sky winter day we were joined by an enthusiastic crowd of 35-40.

The crew had done a stellar job readying up, and the placed looked about as pretty as a just-insulated house with no walls or ceilings can look!!  The questions were intelligent, and it was instructive to see how a house at this stage – where everything is invisible – is a wonderful educational laboratory.

Afterward I received the following e-mail:

John,

Thanks again for the open house — very informative; inspiring, even.  I don’t know how many clients would go for this profound rebuild instead of a new design/build, but, whether in a new or retrofit, the energy efficiency is impressive.

At Habitat, we’ve been building pretty good houses for an amazingly low price, thanks, in part to you.  One of our homeowners came to us a few months after moving in and asked, “Our electric bill is $15 a month. Is that right?”  Efficiency is the gift that keeps on giving.

Best regards,

Jon Snyder

Thanks for coming Jon.  And everyone else too.  Today it looks completely different – everything covered up with smooth plaster.  You only get one chance to see the bones and the muscle.

Categories: South Mountain Company

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