King County Housing Authority (KCHA) has begun the work on a $3.5m project that will make energy efficiency improvements to the apartments and community center at Cascade Homes, a 108-unit public housing complex in Kent.
This project, which will involve building envelope upgrades for each of the 26 two-story buildings at Cascade, including the replacement of roofs and the installation of new exterior siding, windows, and energy-efficient exterior lights, is expected to reduce the housing units’ energy costs by 10%.
The project will also make energy-efficiency improvements at the Cascade community center, installing a new energy-efficient heat pump system and new energy saving lighting, and lowering the cathedral ceiling in the building to reduce loss of heat.
KCHA has appointed CDK Construction Services as the general contractor for the building envelope project, while the architectural services will be provided by ORB Architects and the new siding and windows will be provided and installed by Alside.
The crawl space insulation work will be Cascade Commercial Insulation and Thompson Electrical Constructors will act as the electrical contractor for the energy efficiency project that is expected to be completed by August 2011.
King County Housing Authority executive director Stephen Norman said that this retrofit will extend the life of a critical housing resource and provide good paying jobs in the local construction industry.