LAS VEGAS, NEV. –  Pulte Homes of Las Vegas announced that it received one of the first BASF Builders Challenge Awards at ceremony during the 2009 International Builders Show in Las Vegas, NV.  The award was presented to Nat Hodgson, Vice President of Construction for Pulte Homes & Del Webb Communities, Las Vegas Division by Jack Armstrong, Leader, Building and Construction Markets North America, BASF for completion of the greatest number of qualifying homes with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Builders Challenge program in 2008.

“We are proud to have completed over 500 qualifying homes with the Builders Challenge initiative,” said Nat Hodgson, of Pulte.  “At Pulte, we take seriously our commitment to green building and to our homebuyers and we want to be able to provide them among the most energy efficient homes on the market today.”

BASF launched the Builders Challenge Awards this year to honor builders who achieve significant benchmarks under the DOE Builders Challenge, a voluntary, national energy savings program calling for the nation’s homebuilding industry to build 220,000 high performance energy efficient homes by 2012.  The program uses a national metric called an E-Scale to measure a home’s efficiency that enables homeowners to better understand energy efficiency and make smart decisions when purchasing homes.  

“BASF is delighted to be a pioneering partner in the Builders Challenge, and to be the first to recognize builders who have taken such great strides in innovation and performance in housing as Pulte Homes,” said Jack Armstrong of BASF.

“Pulte Homes has shown tremendous leadership with completion of 669 homes in the first year of the program, and their pledge to build 1000 more in 2009,” said Ed Pollock, Building Residential Team Leader, Building Technologies Program, and DOE’s Builders Challenge program.  “They are helping to set a new standard for production builders across America.”

DOE announced the initiative at last year’s IBS and to date, DOE has qualified over 865 homes across the nation, as part of the Builders Challenge.  By 2020, DOE’s Building America program will have completed research to enable Americans to purchase cost-effective Net Zero Energy Homes.   The 1.3 million homes built to the Builders Challenge between now and then, will save Americans an estimated $1.7 billion in energy costs while also providing homes built with best practices for durability and comfort.