Photovoltaics | TC Legend Homes

South Hill

by Senna | Jul 25, 2023

South Hill Forest Hideaway

South Hill Forest Hideaway is placed on a one-of-a-kind lot in the heart of town yet privately tucked away in the woods with beautiful views. The forgotten lot was purchased by a couple who envisioned an accessible, aging-in-place hideaway to grow old in together, with a big emphasis on accessible. In order to achieve this dream, the home’s design and final finishes had to be carefully considered. The 1525 square foot home is all one level so that every room can remain usable and without worry about falling on stairs. In order to further fall-proof the house, the drywall and countertop corners are rounded, the flooring is made of a softer material, there is a walk-in shower with grab bars to hold on to and the washer and dryer are elevated higher off the ground. The houses most accessible bathroom was also designed to make accessing it with a wheelchair or walker a lot easier as it is 6’ wide and instead of a standard vanity, has a pedestal sink. All of the doors are 3’ wide and have lever handles which are easier to open than knobs.

Due to the lot’s topography, South Hill Forest Hideaway was built on a steep slope and required half of the house to be stilted while the other half has a slab-on-grade foundation. For some contractors, stilt houses can be tricky to build, but TC Legend Homes has plenty of experience and expertise in this kind of build.

When it came time to tackle the tree retention plan, the homeowner joined in and got their hands dirty planting the 22 Douglas Fir, Western Hemlock, Western Red Cedar and Grand Fir saplings with love and care.

This home is a truly special hideaway!

Specs

Overview:
- 1525 sqft
- 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom
- Half stilted and half slab-on-grade
- Aging-in-place
- Air Sealing: 0.64 ACH
- HERS Index: 35
- Certifications: DOE Zero Energy Ready Home certified, ENERGY STAR certified, EPA Indoor airPLUS certified, anticipated Built Green 4-star certified
Mechanical:
- Ventilation: Fantech Hero 250H-EC with HEPA filtration. Built-in humidity, temperature, and CO₂
- Heating/Cooling: Chiltrix CX34 + comfopost ducted heat & cool + fan-coil heater/chiller

Samish Solar

by Senna | Jul 25, 2023

Samish Solar

Sitting on a stunning 5-acre lot nestled into the woods and surrounded by wildflowers and berries, Samish Solar Home is an oasis for a growing family of mountain bikers and nature enthusiasts.

Along with this home’s solar array making it net-zero, it has an added level of resiliency with its 28,000-gallon rainwater cistern that supplies the house and its fire suppression system with water. The rainwater is filtered through a sediment filter, activated carbon filter, and UV filter to ensure it is fit for domestic use.

Built using TC Legend’s tried-and-true methods, Samish Solar Home exemplifies what our construction strategies can produce. Just look at these stats!

Specs

Overview:
- 2345 sqft heated living space & 234 sqft unheated sunroom
- 1600 sqft barn with 895 sqft loft
- 4 bedroom, 3.5 bathroom
- Net Zero Energy
- 1st floor aging-in-place
- Passive solar heating/cooling design
- Insulation: R-29 walls & R-59 ceiling
- Air Sealing: 0.27ACH
- HERS Index: -20
- Annual Energy Cost Savings: $2432
- Certifications: DOE Zero Energy Ready Home certified, ENERGY STAR certified, EPA Indoor airPLUS certified, anticipated Built Green 5-star certified
Mechanical:
- Ventiliation: Fantech Hero 250 with built in HEPA filter. Built-in humidity, temperature, and CO₂
- Heating/Cooling: Chilltrix CX-34; hydronic radiant floor heating downstairs and a fan coil unit upstairs
- PV: 10.8kW solar array with Enphase microinverters and battery ready
Selections:
- Timber framed entry
- Locally made cherry cabinets
- Certified metal cool roof
- Greenguard Gold Maple flooring
- No/Low-VOC finishes
- Fir doors and trim
- Triple pane, Low-E coated, argon-filled vinyl windows

Shepard-Nguyen DADU

by Senna | Jul 25, 2023

Shepard-Nguyen DADU

Built to house grandma on a multi-generational property, Shepard-Nguyen DADU is an accessible 484 square foot home with an additional 176 square foot loft. The DADU was designed to be light, airy and open in order to create a welcoming and safe environment for the grandkids to play in and grandma to hide away to when needed. The clients have an excellent eye for interior design, so the home was completed to a sleek and modern finish.

Since the main occupant is grandma, the home was designed for aging-in-place with wide doorways, a curbless shower with handrails, lever style door handles, extra grabs for the pocket doors, and a seat at the entry.

Specs

484 square feet
176 square foot loft
1 bedroom, 1 bathroom
Net Zero Energy
4kW solar array with Enphase micro-inverters
HERS Index: -10
DOE Zero Energy Ready Home certified, ENERGY STAR certified, EPA Indoor airPLUS certified
Fujitsu mini-split
HEPA filtration
ENERGY STAR 50-gallon domestic hot water tank

Cascade

by Senna | Nov 15, 2022

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

Forest Hill House

by Senna | 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.