Manmohan Mahal

 Founder + CEO

My Inspiration

My journey to conceptualize the formation of SIDCO (Sustainable Innovative Design Company) started in 2015 when I visited India after many years. New Delhi, where I grew up, I saw that the city was more crowded and polluted than I had ever experienced when I graduated from Delhi Public School, New Delhi and Indo-Swiss Training Center college in Chandigarh. I left my homeland very unhappy and concerned about the future of humanity, family and friends living in such conditions which would be considered unacceptable in many other countries of Europe and America. As they did not know or had experienced life other than in India.
Read More


I attended the COP21 in Paris where world leaders established the guidelines to combat global climate change and its impact on humanity and rising water in coastal areas. In many presentations at COP21 India and China were referred to as the most polluted countries that were contributing to Global Warming. I became very concerned to see how we as humans have contributed to Global warming, and its impact on climate change that has devastated our environment.

The following year my emphasis in a CleanTech Incubator was to Build a Passive house about which I learned from the father of the Passive Home institute in Germany Dr. Wolfgang Feist. These are the most energy efficient homes built with PHPP software analysis and design concepts. To mitigate the effects of climate change. 

I read the book and saw the movie All Gore’s – An Inconvenient Truth and was convinced that the impact is real and it’s too late to stop the devastation caused by floods and fires all over the world.

Living in California and witnessing all the fires was hitting home. The fire in Paradise raised lots of questions in my mind that why we have not been able to build structures that can withstand fire. The whole city vanished in four hours and we lost lives and property.

My quest to understand the housing market for fire-resistant homes has become my highest priority. I learned that Australia has had many fires and were leading the way in this technology. I was convinced that I have to build a fire restaurant home to save lives and property in California. I went to Ontario, Canada and had MGO Systems design a SIP house with Fire Resistant panels. It was hard to get the permits and structural engineering done as it had never been done before. Persistence paid off and we finally got the plans approved in the City of Hollister California and just completed the construction. It’s time to market it now.

In order to conserve energy I also got a patent on the Eco Smart Panel to save energy. It is approved and being used to build this house. Here is the link to the patent. https://patents.justia.com/patent/10982882

Now we want to develop the story around these two homes, one Fire Resistant in Hollister and other one Steel Frame Bone Structure house in Palo Alto as a Passive Inspired net zero home. 

Here is some more information about my Entrepreneurship attributes, I had to answer some of these questions about myself.

Who am I?

I am a very lucky man who has been given another chance to live after I almost lost my life to heart disease at an early age of 35. I was diagnosed with compulsive Type A behavior and had a heart attack in 1985 and survived with quadruple bypass. I had a lot of stress on the job that contributed to this episode. I lost my identity and became very depressed.

Read More


I was the guinea pig for the first stent developed by Dr Richard Schatz who had helped Mother Tresa before my procedure in Scripps Clinic in San Diego. On may 26, 1993 Dr. Phylip Oyer at Stanford University transplanted a young 18 year old’s heart and gave me life again.

I became Mr. Mom for many years and finally took care of my two lovely daughters Subina and Simran who were always the reason for my desire to live. I would not be here today without the care and love of my wife Arvinder Mahal who stood by me during this journey. She is the backbone of our family and pillar of my crazy life and adventures. She is spiritual and grounded and accepts living in the present. I had the support of my family and friends. I began to work on solving this challenge single handedly.

I am a husband, father, son, survivor, thinker, motivator, problem solver, creator, risk taker, environmentalist and an entrepreneur. I like to live life in the present moment. Past is history, the future is a mystery and today is all I have as a present.

What is my Passion?

Searching my soul and purpose in life I was called to follow my extints to help people and promote Organ Donation so we could have more donors to help save lives. I became a volunteer and Ambassador to the Donor Network West and United Network of Organ Sharing.

Read More

This lasted for a few years and I was driven to make an impact on the lives of many more people and humanity. I always used to think as a lucky Heart Transplant survivor I was not doing enough. I often question my purpose in life, why I am still here after twenty-eight years of a heart transplant. Whereas the life expectancy for the transplant patient was about fifteen to twenty years.

I focused on developing Passive homes and fire resistant homes that were all electric and supported with 100% renewable energy. No burning fossil fuels. As a result I also drive a Hydrogen fueled car Toyota Mirai which has water as the exhaust.

My passion is to improve the environment by making small contributions by building all electric net zero and fire resistant homes using all renewable solar energy rather than just talking about them.

This has not been an easy passion to follow. I had to make many sacrifices to build this kind of home as no bank would finance them because there was nothing to compare with the value of the homes once built. Passions can be expensive to follow and achieve without the help of like minded people and companies. I have mortgaged my rental property and my parents rental property to the private lends to get the funding at a premium cost to build these homes. I have been hit with foreclosures as CODID-19 stopped all the construction for years. Now we are experiencing delays because of the supply chain and lack of labor and materials to build the homes.

What do I want?

I began to see myself as an environmentalist and supporting the vision promoted by Ellon Musk to go electric and cut back on emissions. I built homes and marketed them with a prepaid lease on a Tesla to take away one more fossil fuel car off the road. Read More
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelinemaynard/2013/06/25/in-san-jose-buy-a-house-get-a-tesla/?sh=4cdebec266ec Cars made a big impact on the environment and the next big thing was the housing industry. We as humans live in homes that contribute emissions to the environment as we use natural gas for combustion by heating our homes and use gas for domestic hot water. I am an entrepreneur and an environmentalist who wants to change the way we build homes in future. Building fire resistant homes in a factory and assembling them on site saving time, money, human lives and environment. We have been building with lumber for centuries and have cleared the forest that protects our environment. We must stop this as soon as possible. SIDCO has the solution now.

What is the Problem?

The problem is the impact global warming and climate change are having on our lives and our planet. Our goal is to mitigate the impact.

We know that we have to reduce carbon emissions. Many of these greenhouse gases occur naturally, but human activity is increasing the concentration of some of them in the atmosphere, particularly CO2 produced by human activities, which is the largest contributor to global warming. Since 2020 its concentration in the atmosphere has risen above its pre-industrial levels.

Commitment to Gradual Change:

SIDCO Remodeled a home for a customer and made it Net Zero. The property sold $130K over the asking price. You have to be different from the other builders who whitewash the green features but really do not look at all the energy efficient components of the building to conserve energy. You have to make a commitment to do the right thing rather than just make maximum profit.

Be a changemaker with small steps. SIDCO started to incorporate the Passive house features in the homes that we started building years ago and now the focus has become to build only Net Zero and Fire Resistant homes following the passion will result in better homes financial rewards.

Do things Differently:
I am always looking for better ways to do things and solve the problem with the consent of other experts. That is the reason we not only build homes but also look for different solutions to do the same thing with better materials giving us better results and using the best crews. We are solving a problem and helping mitigate climate change. One of the characteristics I have is to see and do things differently and always ask if there is another way to accomplish the same result by doing things faster, more efficiently and economically. This can be challenging and cost you money and time but once you have solved the problem it becomes second nature for future projects.
Encourage Creativity:
In order to solve problems you have to support the creativity at all levels of your organization. Architectural Designs, Structural Engineering, Product development , Marketing and Sales selection of material and equipment for the homes, Interior and exterior finishes. Finally the sale of the homes. Creativity brings out the best in all the participants in the organization. We are two people in one body: Human and Spiritual. We will see the results of our contributions as long as we can see them as humans but the creation of the concepts and developments will remain and that is the Spiritual component of our contributions and will last forever.

Goals and Objectives

SIDCO Homes Inc is a Public Benefit Delaware corporation with a vision to reduce energy consumption and conserve water, using sustainable and innovative practices. The goal is to mitigate climate change by building passive-inspired fire-resistant net-zero homes with no emission and using renewable energy with our patented Eco Smart panels to save Energy.

WHY?

Our reason is to minimize Global Warming by reducing energy consumption and cutting back on carbon emissions by building Passive inspired Net Zero Fire-resistant homes to save lives and property using sustainable renewable energy. This is to prevent losses we have experienced in California from fires and floods in other states.

WHO?

The market for this product is huge; it all depends how we target ourselves. We will use the product to build homes made by SIDCO Homes

WHERE?

Sky’s the limit SIDCO could become the exclusive importer of the product and stock it at many distribution warehouses all over the country starting with the California as local market. The investment will be done as we build up the business. We are looking for investors with the vision to expand in this market and join hands with SIDCO.

WHAT?

We are not using the conventional method of building with lumber and traditional building practices. Our buildings are built with steel and proprietary structurally insulated panels that are fire resistant, moisture resistant – no termite, no mold, the units are built on site saving time and cost. Sidco has procured the fire resistant panels and are being shipped to our warehouse in Hayward California. We want to promote and market them to our prospective customers. This is what we have built the house with Hollister. They are insulated panels with steel frames. SIDCO panels use a low energy to manufacture as compared with cement.

WHEN?

The answer is as soon as possible. We will have to scale up as the demand increases. Most importantly our mission and vision is to mitigate Global warming and climate change. We can not wait any longer. We are running out of time so we must move on this proposition NOW.