This Contractor Wants You to Build Made in America Homes—So He's Making it Easier

Contractor Vince Kimbel wants you to buy American—so he’s making it easy, much unlike his experience.

The Louisville, Ky.-based custom builder is on a mission to lower the barriers for builders, remodelers, and architects to buy and specify American-made building products through co-founded platform American Grade. 

In 2013, Kimbel, alongside a supportive client, tasked himself with constructing a 100% made in America home. It took an extra 700 hours of research, and he barely broke 90%. But in the end, he calculated that $300,000 worth of imported products were converted to American products.

“When you consider that most homes are already 50% American without really doing anything out of the norm, we made a tremendous impact,” says Kimbel. “Imagine if every builder and remodeler changed 5-20% of their building products to American products. If you multiply that out by the amount of homes we build in this country, my gosh, we’d solve the national debt.”

It’s a second passion for Kimbel, who still runs Kimbel Construction, alongside his family, including sister, American Grade Co-Founder Kelly Kimbel Doyle.

“We’re a small local home builder in Louisville, Ky. that came up with this grand idea to help our economy and our country to do this,” he says.

Building American Grade

With American Grade, Kimbel wants to cut down the hours it took him to specify. The website acts as a search engine for the industry to find American-made products and businesses.

It soft launched in fall 2023 and features just over 400 products and roughly 50 businesses that are either made in America or qualified by the Buy American Act.

Kimbel looks next to launch a special designation program, American Grade Homes and Buildings. Even better, he’d like to see tax incentives for certified American Grade Homes, a pitch he presented at recent leadership meetings for the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).

"We’re a small local home builder in Louisville, Ky. that came up with this grand idea to help our economy and our country to do this."

Pitching a New Program

Kimbel likens himself to a pioneer. He became the first Energy Star builder in Kentucky early on in 1998, which he saw as an opportunity to differentiate himself from local competition.

Kimbel followed the program, built efficient homes, and now plans to model American Grade certification after Energy Star's program, offering the same differentiation bonus for builders while helping the economy.

“We know that when consumers buy American products, they create American jobs and it creates American tax revenues and those tax revenues pay for the things we need in this country,” says Kimbel.