Cascade

Cascade

Cascade Lane

Cascade was constructed and sold as a spec home, neighboring two other TC Legend Houses from the
earlier days of Ted’s green construction career. The home is nestled in the steep hillside with the driveway and most of the house standing on stilts. The area is notorious for almost inaccessibly steep driveways, so to create a usable flat driveway at street level and eliminate concrete retaining walls, the 24’ wide driveway bridges to the house with the garage located on stilts, on-grade with the main (second) floor. Cascade projects into space with only a small foundation containing the plumbing. This stilt-house configuration substantially reduces the cost to
build from a traditional foundation and leaves the onsite flora largely intact.

From the entry you walk into the open kitchen, living and dining area with views of the green forest all
around. Behind the kitchen is the utility room and first bathroom. On the lower floor are three
bedrooms and a bathroom, with the master able to be re-configured as a Jack-and-Jill. Also on the lower
floor is the laundry which is located under the stairs and a cozy living or work space with a sliding glass
door out to a small deck that can hold your mini vegetable garden. In total, Cascade is 1400 sf with 3
bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a 240 sf garage.

Built and performing just as all our standard homes, Cascade is a Net-Zero home and will receive a Built
Green 5 star certification along EPA Indoor AirPLUS certification, EPA Energy Star certification and
Department of Energy Zero Energy Ready Home rating.

Specs

  • 1400 square feet
  • 3 bedrooms, 2 bathroom
  • 240 sf garage
  • Cook’s kitchen
  • Kitchen bar
Lake Samish Lookout

Lake Samish Lookout

We could not have asked for a more perfect site to build on than Lake Samish Lookout. Besides the striking views all around, the lot is mostly flat and already came with utilities stubbed on site. There were also no trees harmed in the building of this home. In all, the lot created a very cost-effective build which made all parties happy!

Lake Samish Lookout was designed to use space efficiently and effectively while optimizing the stunning easterly views of Lake Samish and natural southern lighting. The house includes 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and an upside-down layout with a spacious, open kitchen, dining and living room on the second floor looking over the lake and surrounding forest. From the second floor living space, you can effortlessly access the 240 sqft deck for the full panoramic views. Whether it be outdoor cooking and dining, lounging, or working with a view, the spacious deck adds a complementary flex space to the small footprint home for bigger living. In total, this Net-Zero house measures 1500 sqft and was completed the summer of 2022. 

Lake Samish Lookout was built using our standard TC Legend envelope and mechanical systems but with Fujitsu 18RL heat pump with one head on each floor. On the Southwest sloping metal roof, sits an 8.1kW photovoltaic array, allowing the house to produce an excess of electricity to power both the house and an electric vehicle, qualifying the house as a Net-Positive home. The aesthetic wooden arbor in the northeast corner of the house coveys the roof’s stormwater to an unusual up-slope infiltration trench required by the site topography. 

With a 0.41 air changes per hour, the envelop sealing exceeds Passivehaus standards. We expect the home to receive at least a 4 Star Built Green rating and has received Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready Home rating, Energy Star certification and EPA’s Indoor AirPLUS certification. 

Lead carpenter Jeff did a superb job managing the construction on this cozy abode, with photographer John Trax commenting that this was the cleanest construction site he has ever seen. On site just about every day for the last 2 months of the build, Jeff made sure the house was finished to the highest standards!

Larson

Larson

This 2,020 square-foot two-story, five-bedroom family house was built in rural King County. It has an additional 280 square-foot integrated single-car garage within the SIPs shell. The garage can be re-purposed into a flex space, such as a kids’ TV room, playroom, workshop, etc. The home was built in 2018 in western Washington.

The major challenge with this undeveloped site was to dig the potable water line 1,000 feet through a boulder field. The client miraculously located the well stub within the forest, and the TC Legend team dodged and weaved the waterline through.

Additionally, we carved the driveway 500’ through the second-growth forest, located the house for optimum solar exposure, and laid the power line in the middle of the driveway, with septic adjacent under what will likely become a forest lawn. A truly stunning site with stag deer, bear, cougars, and more.

The wrap-around porch with concrete walkway mediates between the inside and outside, with a front mudroom to contain kids’ messes and offer an airlock to prevent large temperature drops when the front door is opened in winter.

The house was prevented from becoming overly large and expensive by sizing the kids’ bedrooms at kids’ scale: on the small side of things. However, the vaulted SIPs ceiling at the second floor, which is a standard feature of SIPs construction, presents a very spacious overhead feel. Additionally, multiple windows in many bedrooms ensures that the kids rooms don’t feel boxy.

Specifications

  • U.S. Department of Energy Net-Zero certified
  • Fujistu 18RLXFG heat pump with multiple fan coil heads
  • 12.4 kW of solar panels installed
  • 6.5” R-29 SIPs walls
  • 10.25” R49 SIPs roof
  • 4” R-20 foam under 4” concrete slab-on-grade for thermal mass
  • 5.5” foam (total) R-23.8 insulated concrete forms perimeter stem walls
  • Euroline triple-pane windows (U values from 0.14 to 0.18)
  • 1:1.6 aspect ratio floor plan, with long side facing south
  • Minimal east and west glazing