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Built for Generations
High-Performance Passive Homes Louisville, KY
Blackwell Built Construction is a PHIUS Certified Passive House and high-performance home builder serving Louisville, Lexington, and Cincinnati. We specialize in building energy-efficient custom homes and home additions that deliver exceptional comfort, healthy indoor air, and long-term durability for your family’s future.
phius Certified Builder
As a Phius Certified Builder, we’re trained in the science and strategies that ensure your home is built to deliver exceptional comfort, long-term durability and energy independence.
Building Science
We’re trained to manage temperature, air, and moisture flow — the foundation of durable, comfortable, and efficient homes.
High-Performance Enclosures
Our builds eliminate thermal bridges and drafts with airtight, well-insulated enclosures tailored to your climate.
Mechanical Systems
We install balanced ventilation and high-efficiency systems that ensure year-round comfort and healthy indoor air.
Airtightness Techniques
We use advanced materials and methods to achieve exceptional airtightness, boosting energy savings and durability.
Project Management
We integrate passive house strategies of meticulous quality control into every phase of construction management, reducing the risk of future complications and ensuring a smooth build.
Cost Optimization & Bidding
We are experienced in sourcing the right materials for the right application and we tirelessly support the design team to deliver passive house performance that is tailored to your budget.
Leading the Design-Build Team
We believe in an integrated design approach to building high-performance homes. From day one, we collaborate closely with the architect and design team to ensure energy-efficient and comfort-efficient features are incorporated seamlessly into the design as well as achieving your aesthetic vision of the build. If you haven’t chosen an architect, we can connect you with one from our trusted network of designers who specialize in green building. We’ll assemble a team that’s the perfect match for your project, so your custom home meets our rigorous performance standards without compromising on style. By working hand-in-hand with design team, we ensure your Passive House or high-performance home is designed and built right from conception.
Building Your Custom High-Performance Home
Our construction process leverages the latest in building science and Passive House techniques to create a home that is ultra-efficient, comfortable, and durable. We employ core Passive House principles – from thick continuous insulation and airtight construction to high-performance windows and heat-recovery ventilation – to minimize energy waste. Every detail, from advanced framing to optimal solar orientation, is considered to reduce the home’s heating and cooling needs.
As a result, the homes we build can use up to 90% less energy for heating and cooling than conventional houses. What does this mean for you? Lower utility bills and a smaller carbon footprint, without sacrificing comfort. In fact, our high-performance homes offer superior indoor comfort and air quality year-round, free of drafts and hot/cold spots. They also come with additional benefits such as an indoor living space free of outside noise, wall assemblies that are free from future risk of mold or moisture issues and a home that is designed and built to last generations to come. In short, we don’t just build houses – we create forever homes built to stand the test of time.
Certifying your Home
We back up our building practices with rigorous testing and third-party certification to prove your home’s performance. Our team conducts blower door tests on every project to measure and minimize air leakage. (For context, the stringent Passive House standard requires air leakage no greater than 0.6 air changes per hour at 50 Pascals.) We also utilize certified Home Energy Raters to inspect and evaluate each home’s efficiency. They perform on-site diagnostics – including blower door and duct leakage tests – and use the data to generate a Home Energy Rating System (HERS) Index score for your home. The lower the HERS Index, the more efficient the home – a typical new home scores 100, while a net-zero energy home scores 0. Our goal is to achieve the lowest possible HERS score for your home, indicating superior energy performance and comfort. Every result is verified by independent experts, so you can have full confidence in your home’s actual efficiency.
Beyond testing, we help certify your home to nationally recognized high-performance building programs. We actively pursue certifications and ratings such as ENERGY STAR® for Homes, the DOE Zero Energy Ready Home program, and Passive House certification to name a few. Meeting these rigorous third-party standards means your home has outstanding levels of energy savings, comfort, health, and durability, all validated by qualified third-party inspectors. We can also target certifications for excellent indoor air quality and sustainability, ensuring your home is not only energy-efficient but also healthier for you and the environment. By certifying your home’s performance – from its HERS Index to its air quality – we deliver tangible proof that your new home is truly a high-performance, passive home built to the highest standards.
Services
Certified Passive House
Passive House home building focuses on creating ultra-efficient, airtight homes that maintain comfortable indoor temperatures with minimal energy use. Using super insulation, high-performance windows, and balanced ventilation, these homes offer exceptional air quality, quiet interiors, and dramatically lower utility costs.
High Performance Homes
High-performance home building combines advanced construction methods and building science to create homes that exceed standard energy, comfort, and durability benchmarks. These homes use better insulation, airtight design, efficient systems, and smart ventilation to deliver lower energy bills, healthier indoor air, and year-round comfort.
Home Additions
Whether you need more space for family, a new kitchen, or an extra room to work from home, our custom additions expand your living area while preserving what you love about your home. We blend high-performance building science with superior craftsmanship—offering PHIUS-certified options alongside traditional construction—so your addition delivers comfort, energy efficiency, and lasting quality.
Our Process
At Blackwell Built, we're dedicated to a client-focused process that makes building your dream space straightforward. It begins with a phone call to understand your goals, followed by an on-site and/ or in-person meeting where we can discuss your vision in detail and outline the scope of work. This collaborative approach ensures your needs are fully understood from the start.
Once we align on the general scope of work and budget, we move into the design phase and will make plan revisions based on your feedback. Once the construction plans and budget are finalized, construction will begin. Throughout the construction process, we will continue to work closely with the client every step along the way. At the project completion, we conduct a final walkthrough and review all the details to ensure the build satisfies your expectations.
