Forest Hill House

Forest Hill House

by | Sep 29, 2021

The Forest Hill house was commissioned by a night-shift worker with a love of house plants & the land upon which he was raised. The lot, bequeathed by grandma, faces due south with a big sky view, interrupted only by a distant fir; ideal for passive solar harvest, active photovoltaic (PV) harvest, and vegetable harvest!

Built over the winter of 2020/ 2021, Jeff tells me the build was all straightforward, except grinding down the interior slab-on-grade after the stick-frame walls were built. The grinder is a frustratingly twitchy machine, time consuming, and no one’s favorite job. The result however is a beautiful concrete floor with the aggregate cut-through, showing patina from the bull-float & the cream in the concrete. This floor will endure through many years of very hard wear.

Equally durable materials are used to clad the SIP roof & walls; NuDura metal roofing & Hardie fiber-cement lap siding combine to protect the insulating SIPs foam panels. The siding was hung in-house by TC and the fellas did a fabulous job of precisely stacking the board-joints, setting up a very pleasing pattern in the siding.

To clad the small 6” ICF (Insulated concrete form) upstand, TC uses colored 26 gauge metal to protect the insulating foam from impact & abrasion.

The highly insulated energy-shell enables this home to be heated with 12Btu/ hour (max) Fujitsu minisplit. This is an all-electric, net zero house, ready for the future. Including the coming storms….

Battery power is a hot topic these days, with grid managers planning for greater grid efficiency by storing off-peak grid surplus in privately owned battery systems.

TC Installed the 5Kw LG lithium-ion house battery on the exterior north wall. Integrated with the PV, the battery allows the PV produced electricity to be stored, ensuring this all-electric house works even when the power goes down.

Forrest Hill
Morales Utility Shed

Morales Utility Shed

by | Oct 25, 2020

This small backyard building in urban Bellingham was designed for multiple uses: yoga studio, brewery, workshop, and cycle storage. While not built to be a living space, it does have a bathroom. The entire project was built for just $120,000, with the client doing much of the finish work. With its south-facing roof, this building is ready to become net-zero-energy with the installation of solar panels.

Specifications

  • 360 square feet
  • 6.5” SIPs walls
  • 8.25” SIPs roof
  • 4” R-20 foam under 4” concrete slab-on-grade for thermal mass
  • R-24 insulated concrete forms perimeter stem-walls below grade
  • Terracotta colored floor from red dye within poured concrete slab. Scrubbed, polished, sealed.
Bellingham Gentle Density DADU

Bellingham Gentle Density DADU

by | Jul 18, 2019

TC Legend Homes demolished an existing one-car garage and re-purposed the available space with a cozy, high-performance, 775 square foot, detached accessory dwelling unit (DADU) that includes an attached single-car garage. The RE Store handled the structure demolition to maximize recycling opportunities and minimize waste.

The DADU was designed from the ground up to be net-positive-energy, meaning it will produce more energy on an annual basis than it requires. TC Legend Homes applied the same approach and many of the same building techniques to this DADU as it does to any of its other homes.

Key Features

  • A simple design to minimize exposed surface area

  • Orientation and window placement to optimize active and passive solar

  • Slab on grade with 4” under-slab insulation & Insulated concrete forms

  • Structural Insulated Panel construction (vice traditional framing) to reduce possibility of thermal bridging

  • Triple-pane windows

  • High-efficiency mini-split heat pump for heating & cooling and high-efficiency heat pump for water heating

  • HEPA High Efficiency Whole House Insulated Filtration System

  • 5.4kw photovoltaic solar system

  • Energy Star, EPA Indoor airPLUS, and 5-Star Built Green Certified

  • Home Energy Rating System (HERS) Index is negative 16!  (A typical new home has a rating of + 62).

Whatcom County DADU

Whatcom County DADU

by | Jul 18, 2019

 All photos courtesy of Jared VanderGriend

This family needed some room for the big kids to spread out. TC Legend Homes designed and built this accessory dwelling unit to meet their needs. The family gained a large garage, with 576 square feet of living space perched above, accessible to the main house via 2nd-story bridge.

Key Features:

  • A simple design to minimize exposed surface area

  • Orientation and window placement to optimize passive solar

  • Insulated concrete forms

  • 2nd floor Structural Insulated Panel construction (vice traditional framing) to reduce possibility of thermal bridging

  • Double-pane windows

  • High-efficiency mini-split heat pump for heating & cooling

  • Energy Star, EPA Indoor airPLUS, and 4-Star Built Green Certified

  • Home Energy Rating System (HERS) Index is 46.  (A typical new home has a rating of + 62).

Issaquah Rental Home

Issaquah Rental Home

by | Dec 29, 2014

Rick had plenty of building experience, so when he decided to construct a detached accessory dwelling unit (DADU) on his large lot in Issaquah, he wanted it to be a hands-on project. TC Legend Homes built the highly insulated SIPs shell, and Rick took it from there. These photos show what an excellent job he did with the finish work. While the home does not have solar panels installed yet, it is oriented to make the future addition of PV simple.

We like this project because it shows how an owner who wants to get involved can save on construction costs and still end up with an air-tight, well-built structure that will last for generations. We also like how Rick made excellent use of his beautiful treed lot, adding another home near his main residence that will bring him rental income and add value to his property.