Zero-Energy | TC Legend Homes

Point Whitehorn Net Zero

by Senna | Nov 15, 2023

Point Whitehorn Net Zero

Point Whitehorn Net Zero home is a modern, space-efficient, and economical home for the couple to spend quality family time in with their kids and eventually grow old in. The entire first floor is accessible for aging-in-place, leaving the second floor for family to stay over.

The stacked design and minimal undulations in the envelope helped make the most use out of every inch and get the best cost per square foot.

On the North side of the property is a wetland mitigation area that has been smartly sectioned off and adds an extra beautifully landscaped view with native trees, shrubs and wildflowers.

Specs

Overview:
- 1802sf SFR & 300sf carport
- 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath SFR
- Net Zero Energy
- 1st floor aging-in-place
- Passive solar heating/cooling design
- Insulation: R-29 walls & R-59 ceiling
- Air Sealing: 0.31ACH
- HERS Index: -2
- Annual Energy Cost Savings: $2,141
- 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 fan coil unit
- PV: 7.2kW solar array with Enphase microinverters and battery ready
Selections:
- Thermatru exterior doors
- Lifetime warrantied asphalt roofing
- Birch doors and hemlock trim
- Floor Score certified laminate flooring
- Quartz countertops
- LED lighting
- WaterSense plumbing fixtures
- ENERGY STAR appliances
- No/Low-VOC finishes
- Triple pane, Low-E coated, argon-filled vinyl windows

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

Lake Samish Lookout

by Senna | Jul 22, 2022

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!

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.

Neos House

by Senna | Aug 26, 2021

The Neos house is a 4 bedroom family house. 2614 square feet. Completed in spring 2021.

Designed as a multi-generational home with one full bathroom & one full bedroom on the 1^st floor, if the piano-room & the rec-room were enclosed with walls we’d have a 7-bedroom home. Enough for a substantial family to live together.

Pointing south, the view looks towards the huge garden.

The garden spills into the dining area through sliding doors. The folks who commissioned this home are gardeners, with kids, who will be drawn towards the natural world as a way to thrive.

The weather briefly nips at you as you walk from the front door to the garage under the covered walkway, creating a connection with the day’s weather and the world outside the energy-shell.

The SIPs installation was subcontracted because this is a Bellevue job & the TC crew have northern families & want to be home at night if possible. Issac taught a Peruvian framing crew how to sling the SIPs and the job ran fast & smoothly using advanced SIPs details required by the Bellevue jurisdiction.

Despite one design mistake (the mechanicals are in the unheated garage), this house is an exercise in textbook design for cost & energy performance.

The client did a stellar job of following design advice & the crew lovingly built the house, sealing the envelope to 0.6 air changes per hour, Passivehaus standard. The result is an economical house that has won a Department of Energy Grand Prize, attained 5-star Build Green certification and is certified Net Zero.

The envelope & mechanical systems are all drawn from the 2020 TC system: 6.5” walls, 10.25” SIP roof, 4” R20 foam under the slab, R24 ICF’s, Chilltrix CX34 heatpump with (1) fancoil upstairs, Zehnder 350 HRV with comfopost heat/ cool delivery. Vinyltek triple pane windows & Thermatru front door.

All the stormwater from the roof is infiltrated back into the onsite soils via a huge infiltration trench. Additionally, the excavation soils all remained onsite to reduce soils trucking. The clients took responsibility for seeding the exposed construction soils, choosing to plant a complex cover crop in place of the usual grass. The cover crop can be tilled back into the soils to impart nitrogen & other nutrients when a new planting regime is decided upon.

The house in a garden is a traditional family way of life and TC is proud to have built a modern, dense & flexible version of this ideal, updated to make all its own power to address the demands of the climate-change world.

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