About · SIDCO-ESP
SIDCO-ESP was founded in 2019 by a team of structural engineers, materials scientists, and architects who watched their own neighborhoods disappear in fire and refused to accept it as a category of weather. We believe the next century of housing has to be wildfire-resilient, low-carbon, and quietly beautiful — built in a factory, not on a construction site.
Our mission
SIDCO took California wildfire risk into account when developing our homes. Patented Eco Smart panels meet stringent fire-resistance standards — replacing oriented strand board and plywood with energy-saving, fire-resistant MagMatrix panels, assembled in California.
Climate change and extended drought are reality in California. Along with them comes an increase in wildfires. We build smarter — factory-precise envelopes that protect your family and reduce your contribution to global warming.
Vision
We envision a Western housing stock where wildfire resilience is not a premium upgrade but the baseline — where factory-precise mineral envelopes replace stick-built risk, and certified partners deliver homes that read as calm, ordinary, and permanent.
Founder
Founder + CEO
Educated at Delhi Public School, New Delhi and the Indo-Swiss Training Center in Chandigarh — environmental entrepreneur and the driving force behind SIDCO's fire-resistant, all-electric building mission.
Past is history, the future is a mystery and today is all I have as a present.
My inspiration
The path to SIDCO — climate conviction, passive design, wildfire resilience, and the homes that prove it.
Eco Smart Panel · US Patent 10,982,882My 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.
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 — US Patent 10,982,882.
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.
In his words
Here is more about my entrepreneurship attributes — questions I answered about myself. Expand each chapter for the full narrative on identity, purpose, and the future of housing.
The challenge
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.
How we work
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.
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.
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.
Corporate vision
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.
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.
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
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.
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-ESP panels are manufactured by MagMatrix and 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 in Hollister. They are insulated panels with steel frames. MagMatrix MgO panels use less energy to manufacture than conventional cement-based systems.
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.
Mission
Over the last decade, more than 50,000 California homes have been lost to wildfire. We started SIDCO to design the building system that should have been there — a non-combustible, factory-precise envelope that turns a generational risk into an ordinary engineering problem.
The ESP panel is the answer we shipped: a steel-and-mineral assembly engineered to hold a 2,000°F flame for two hours, R-28 continuous, set on a foundation in a single day. It is the spine of every home our partners build.
ESP panel · layered assembly
Our story
Hear how SIDCO's mission took shape — from wildfire loss in Paradise to a patented, factory-built envelope for the West.
Founder interview · Mohan Mahal
SIDCO began in the months after the 2018 Camp Fire. One of our founders, a structural engineer raised in Paradise, came back to a chimney where her childhood home had stood. The engineering question that followed was disarmingly simple: why are we still building houses out of the same material that just burned?
The first prototype was tested at UC Berkeley in 2019 — a sandwich of galvanized steel skin, dense mineral-wool core, and a structural cementitious board, laminated to aircraft tolerances. By 2021 the assembly was patented. By 2023 SIDCO-ESP panels from MagMatrix were in production and our Pittsburg assembly line delivered the first permitted ESP home. In September 2025, a Class-3 wildfire pushed within three lots of that home. The neighbors lost everything. The ESP-built residence lost a single ceramic planter on the back terrace.
That single house changed the conversation. Today SIDCO licenses the ESP system to a vetted network of certified architects and builders across the Western United States. MagMatrix manufactures the panels; we certify and assemble the system. Our partners build the homes. The thesis hasn't moved: California is going to be rebuilt — and the way we build has to change with it.
Principles
Wood frame, on-site labor, and eighteen-month timelines were designed for a California that no longer exists. Every SIDCO assembly assumes wildfire, drought, and seismic stress as defaults.
We separate the parts of a home that benefit from precision from the parts that benefit from craft. Panels are laminated indoors to ±1.5 mm tolerance; the architecture stays with the architect.
SIDCO is a building-technology company. We develop and certify the ESP panel system. A vetted network of architects and builders deliver the homes themselves.
Timeline
First ESP panel prototype tested at UC Berkeley.
US patent filed for the hybrid steel-mineral wall assembly.
MagMatrix panel supply integrated; Pittsburg assembly line commissioned. First permitted home delivered.
An ESP-built residence stands untouched through a Class-3 wildfire.
Certified builder network expands across five Western states.
Where we go next
We're on a mission to revolutionize how homes are built in California. Our safer, self-sustaining construction process will protect you, your family, and your belongings from fires as well as reduce your contribution to global warming, which is the cause of most forest fires we experience today.
Through 2026, SIDCO is opening certified builder cohorts across California, Nevada, Oregon, Arizona, and Colorado. If you build, design, or specify residential construction in fire country, we'd like to talk.
Begin a conversation →