Kala Performance Homes

08/18/2026

No foundation pour is perfectly flat. Rigid lumber set on top only touches the high spots, while everywhere else is a gap running the whole wall length. Foam sill seal can’t chase every dip.

So before anything else goes down at Observation Row, we apply PROSOCO AirDam directly onto the bare concrete, flowing into every irregularity standard foam would miss.

The bead runs the entire perimeter, not just around the bolts, though every bolt gets its own dedicated seal. AirDam’s STP chemistry stays flexible and can be applied even on damp concrete, so weather delays don’t compromise the seal.

While the AirDam is still uncured, we press the foam sill seal directly into it. Foam alone does real work - moisture retarder, insect barrier, some airflow resistance - but pressing it into wet AirDam actually seals it instead of just sitting on the concrete.

Once the sill seal is set, we run another bead of AirDam on top. Down the centerline, plus every butt joint and termination. Insurance, not redundancy: the first bead sealed the concrete below, this one closes anything that slips through the sill seal or a seam.

Concrete → AirDam → sill seal → AirDam → sill plate. One continuous air barrier before a single stud goes up.

Foundation-to-framing is one of the trickiest junctions in the envelope; and one of the costliest to miss.

See how Observation Row is different in our bio.

08/15/2026

What we’re doing at observationrowkc is something most people never think about, and this is where a Kala home immediately separates itself.

Underslab insulation is rare. Basement wall insulation is rarer. The ground beneath a house perpetually pulls heat out of the home through the foundation - that cold basement floor isn’t caused by drafty air, it’s physics.

In a Kala home, the slab floats. It’s physically disconnected from the foundation walls, sitting in a bowl of rigid EPS: R-16 under the slab, R-19 in the basement walls, v***r barrier sealed at every seam, continuous air barrier up into the wall system.

The result: four inches of concrete that holds room temperature instead of ground temperature: a thermal battery, not a drain.

You only get one chance at the foundation. Nobody else does it like this, see why in our bio.

08/01/2026

When you cook, your hood fan pulls smoke, heat, and fumes out of the kitchen. Most homes just dump that air outside and pull air in through the gaps in the home’s structure.

A Kala home is so airtight that the kitchen exhaust is balanced by an additional supply fan. When coupled with an ERV - energy recovery ventilator - your home is constantly filled with fresh, filtered air that’s brought in from outside just when and how it is needed.

Your house stays fresh all the time because there’s no buildup of cooking smells, pet odors, or stale air. The ERV filters everything that comes in and removes everything that shouldn’t be there.

You just notice the result: your home feels different.

07/18/2026

Before we could build anything at Observation Row, what was already there needed to be addressed.

The lots had been vacant for decades.

Not because they were worthless; they were vacant because they were, functionally, a small landfill filled with generations of demolition debris and garbage that had accumulated and been left.

We excavated thousands of tons of it, and brought the site back to a state where a home could actually stand on it.

That investment doesn’t show up in any rendering. But it’s the reason these homes exist.

Cut into the hillside and what came out was broken slab, block, rubble — layer after layer of it. This wasn’t a buildable lot. It was a landfill with grass growing over the top of it. Getting a house on this ground meant dealing with what’s actually down there first.

This is what “vacant lot” actually looked like once you dug in. That’s not naturally occurring rock, that’s broken concrete and other construction debris buried feet below the surface — decades of trash dumped here. You don’t see this from the sidewalk. You see it once you start digging.

Every foot of this site had its own surprises, you don’t know what you’re dealing with until you open it up.

Once the debris fill was cleared back, this is what goes in instead of a standard footing: individual concrete piers, each one set down to solid bearing ground.

The downtown skyline is just visible beyond the treetops.

Every pier marks a load path down to ground that will hold a house. It’s also the only way to do it right.

07/02/2026

At Kala, framing is where performance is won or lost.

Our framers execute air-sealing strategies to reach 0.6 ACH50. They install continuous exterior insulation, thermally broken windows, and ventilated rainscreen systems that extend the life of a building by decades.

They read the drawings and they understand why each detail exists, not just how to build it.
We’re not looking for production framers.

We’re looking for craftsmen who want to master a discipline that most of the industry has barely discovered.

If you have 5–10 years of carpentry or framing experience, a genuine curiosity about high-performance construction, and you’re ready to stop chasing deadlines and start doing the best work of your career, we want to talk.

Head to our bio to apply.

06/22/2026

Most homes aren’t built to be quiet, they’re built to meet the minimum code requirements. Code allows for air leakage at rates of 3ACH50 or higher, which means air is cycling in and out of your home three or more times every hour.

Every gap in a house that lets air in lets sound in, too. Think about traffic, storms, your neighbor’s dog, and the furnace kicking on at 1 AM to keep up with what the walls can’t hold.

The difference between a house built to code and a Passive House built with intention is that it’s five times tighter than code. The walls carry continuous insulation rated R-40, double what you would find in a standard new build. The windows are triple-pane, gas-filled, and STC rated at 45. The building envelope is sealed with Zip System sheathing, PROSOCO sealants, and AirDam at every transition point.

And instead of a furnace that cycles on and off all night, a nearly silent ERV system and heat pump manage the air continuously in the background.

See how Passive House design principles can create a calm, quiet refuge from the outside world: https://www.kalabuilt.com/blog/benefits-of-passive-house-sound

04/17/2026

There has been a lot of conversation around data centers in Kansas City lately, and it is not a simple issue.

Projects like these raise important questions about energy use and long-term sustainability. They are also pushing innovation forward, with retrofitting existing buildings and improving efficiency becoming part of the conversation.

That is why it is exciting to see KC show up in national conversations like this one from Green Builder Media. For a mid-sized city, that kind of recognition matters. It signals that we are heading in the right direction.

Sustainable cities come in three forms: the beginners, the ongoing, and the examples of success.

04/15/2026

It always feels good to be back ✨

04/01/2026

Our collaboration with SixTwentyOne and Therese Wickey Designs was featured in the Spring 2026 issue of Design KC Magazine!

https://mydesignkc.com/featured/chalet-modern/

03/26/2026

We were featured on yesterday morning to take a deep dive into the Leawood Living home.

David Schleicher joined Dan Brown, Therese Wickey, and Keith Sauro to talk with the my KC Live team about what makes this home not only beautiful, but comfortable, healthy, durable, and sustainable.