Cascade Built Blog
September 22, 2010
LEED Platinum in Newport Beach
Posted by sritchie, 3:45 AM
The first LEED Platinum house has landed in Newport Beach CA, if you’re in the area, stop by to check it out:
From their announcement:
Tour the newest LivingHome, in Newport Beach. This is the first LivingHome designed by KieranTimberlake, the 2008 AIA Firm of the Year, and it recently received LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certification from the United States Green Building Council, the first home in Newport Beach to achieve this rating.
This home was designed according to the “Z6” environmental goals LivingHomes strives to achieve: zero energy, zero water, zero indoor emissions, zero waste, zero carbon, and zero ignorance. The LivingHome features recycled steel and timber-efficient engineered lumber; a central vacuum system, and mini-duct air distribution and ventilation systems that help improve indoor air quality; bio-composite wood siding, recycled glass tiles, blown-in insulation, and high performance windows with recycled frames; photovoltaics to create power; and water-saving features, such as low-flow water fixtures and dual flush toilets, and integrated grey-water system.
These are all features that Cascade Built uses and continues to integrate into its projects when and where appropriate. Harder to get the solar PV to pencil at 48 degrees latitude, but all the rest are regular sustainable options on our homes.
August 6, 2010
City of Seattle giving away Free Trees
Posted by sritchie, 6:24 PM
Perennial street tree program for City of Seattle residents is in effect again this year – get your application in by August 16th 2010 to be eligible. From 10-4- free street trees delivered to your street, all free! You provide the labor – get your neighbors together and plant you street. We did it about 5 years ago, and have become really good friends with a couple of the neighbors we did the planting with! And we lost a couple trees, but most are doing just fine. Be sure to water adequately the first few years. Street trees are great for your neighborhood!
Cascade Built and Backyard Box do custom sustainable homes and modern modular prefab too!
August 6, 2010
Cascade Built Quoted in Seattle Magazine August 2010
Posted by sritchie, 3:58 AM
| Shelter: Green Houses – Seattle Magazine
www.seattlemag.com/0p212a2253/shelter-green-houses/ LEED for Homes (LEED-H)
Don’t forget, we do Modular Prefab Homes too!! |
June 3, 2010
California moves toward plastic bag ban
Posted by sritchie, 8:04 AM
Who knew bags grew on trees?
Seems like a good idea.
SAN FRANCISCO — Paper or plastic? Neither.
The bagging options for store clerks could be severely limited after Wednesday’s vote in the California State Assembly to not only ban plastic bags from pharmacies, groceries, convenience stores and liquor stores, but also to make retailers charge at least a nickel for paper bags — which must include recyclable content.
The goal is to prompt 21st-century shoppers in California to do what 20th-century shoppers in Moscow did routinely — keep an avoska, or reusable sack, at the ready. China and Bangladesh already have plastic bag bans in place, and the United Nations has called for the bans to go global.
In the United States, California has gone further toward an overall ban than any other state, although North Carolina has banned plastic bags on the islands of its Outer Banks. However, approval in California’s Senate is far from certain.
But with new support from the state’s grocery store lobby — which wants a uniform statewide policy — and no active opposition from conservative power centers like the Chamber of Commerce, no one is willing to count out Assemblywoman Julia Brownley’s assault on the plastic bags she calls “urban tumbleweed.”
“They’re not only on beaches,” said Ms. Brownley, a Democrat from Santa Monica who sponsored the measure, which squeaked through the Assembly with just the 41 votes needed. “You look in trees and there they are.
April 6, 2010
Whiff of good news for Seattle Housing Market
Posted by sritchie, 5:27 PM
Just saw in Money Magazine, Seattle is one of only 3 US cities to have projected market value gains over the next 1 year. Only 0.6 percent, but that sure beats another 20% down!
March 31, 2010
All-Electric production car enters US market
Posted by sritchie, 7:26 PM
The Nissan Leaf all-electric passenger car is released this year, and pricing was just announced at $25K in the US market. It has a 100 mile range , which is sufficient for most driving situations like going to work, running errands, etc. Infinite MPG, and low operational costs, no more going to the gas station.
Backyard Box backyard cottages
March 29, 2010
Heat Pump retrofit triples the energy efficiency of your water heater
Posted by sritchie, 4:20 PM
Air Tap is a hot water heater retrofit heat pump. It cuts your hot water heating energy consumption by 70%, and only costs $700, so the typical family of 4 will recoup costs in less than 2 years.
Heat pumps use the latent energy from the air to heat the water, and are inherently 2-5 times more efficient than other methods of heating. It works well in the Seattle climate since our temperatures are pretty mild year round.
Pretty cool.
March 17, 2010
Energy Monitoring 2.0
Posted by sritchie, 5:03 PM
Finally an energy monitor that captures circuit level data. Most of the products on the market today are measuring total house consumption and providing it in a web-dashboard or similar. PowerHouse now offers the eMonitor which measures electric consumption at each circuit so you can set parameters to notify you when something’s not performing as expected, and it can even remotely control thermostats, and has an iPhone interface.
We’ll be offering this as an accessory to the pre-designed green Backyard Cottages from Backyard Box, as well as for custom home projects at Cascade Built. It’s around $1,000, which is more than the $200 ones but has so much more functionality for those with the need for information.
March 3, 2010
Green Sustainable Countertops
Posted by sritchie, 10:12 PM
Saw a nice listing of 10 green counter top products to choose from. Right away I found out that one is only available in California – BottleStone (wish I could get it in Seattle for my Backyard Cottage project), and some others are not really for wet kitchen use like DuraPalm, but the nice thing in here is the price per foot is listed to give you an idea about their relative costs.
Check it out on Jetson Green
February 27, 2010
Backyard Box launches Backyard Cottage product line
Posted by sritchie, 5:32 AM
Responding to Seattle’s new ordinance legalizing Backyard Cottages, Backyard Box has designed a line of Backyard cottages for Seattle area residents. Seattle homeowners can now build a separate dwelling unit in a side or rear yard to use as a guest house, rental property, home office, or extended family and multi-generational living.
And did I mention that these are built to the highest energy efficiency standards – they use about 85% less energy to heat and cool versus “standard” code construction.
