Product Spotlight: Cascade™
Have you ever passed by a house and
thought to yourself, “that home looks like it came right out of a storybook or
fairytale!”? If you ever got excited as a child when you saw a home with a
sloped roof reminiscent of a gingerbread house, or one that had a turret or a
tower, then you know these historical-style homes are truly special. We are
proud to have a special product to protect and honor their unique design, our
Cascade™ diamond-shaped Signature Cut shingles.
We feel the same way about these
unique house styles. As Sid Dinwiddie, Technical Services Manager, put it, “In
every Captain’s seaport along the California Coast, there are these beautiful,
old Victorian homes, and we wanted to create a shingle that honored that
style.” But how did we come up with the diamond shape as the solution? To
understand, we must go back to the predecessor to Cascade, which is PABCO
Precise®.
Precise had a diamond shape with a
line through the middle of the diamond. It was made on the standard laminated shingle
line. It was pretty cool looking, but it was difficult to manufacture, and
contractors felt it took extra time and care to lay correctly on the roof.
Still, Precise had somewhat of a cult following with certain roofers who liked
to do something different.
After we installed our new
manufacturing line to produce open-tooth shingles, we were on a mission to
create something special, and took inspiration from anywhere we could get it. Rebecca
Newman, Plant Manager, remembers “We wanted something with structure. I was in
Colorado and saw many homes with the old Dutch Lap and T-Loc shingles, and I
liked the structure of that look.” But not exactly that look. Then the Eureka
moment: “Can we make a shingle that looks like Precise, but has more structure?”
Yes, we could, and Cascade was born.
We couldn’t just have a great
looking shingle. It had to be easy to manufacture, have a no waste process, and
be simple for the contractors to install. Rebecca and Sid did such a great job
in creating Cascade, they are named on the U.S. design patent awarded for the
product.
We know we achieved our design goals because Cascade is often
specified on historic buildings or for roofs in historic neighborhoods. Still,
it’s a great choice no matter where you live if you’re after an impactful and
unique design. We highly recommend Cascade on steeper pitched roofs for full
impact. So now you know the history of Cascade and how it got its iconic
structure and style. Share this with your friends so they learn the Cascade
story!
For more information on Cascade and are other
premium asphalt shingles, give us a call today (253-272-0374) or send us a message
online.
