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Mike Bourquin and Don Jahnke have more than 50 years combined construction experience building single-family homes, multi-family housing units, and light commercial buildings. Together they are experts in every phase of designing and building a home.
Mike’s background is in commercial construction. As a hands-on builder and framer, he has pounded more nails than he cares to remember. Mike knows the difference between construction materials, techniques and technologies that are of superior quality, and those that are not.
Don’s background is in the guts of the building – the plumbing, air handling, heating, cooling, and other mechanical systems. Don was a certified Energy Star rater, testing the mechanical systems and appliances in homes to verify they comply with Energy Star requirements for efficiency.
Memberships and Awards
- Member of National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)
- Affiliated with Structural Insulated Panel Association (SIPA)
- Qualified Energy Star Builder
- Award for Excellence in Building for a 10,000 square foot energy-efficient agricultural warehouse
Midwest Sustainable Construction homes perform at a higher standard than conventional building code. That’s because we design and build them to a higher standard, from the ground up.
Most builders these days talk about how they can build their houses tighter than the next guy. That’s a good thing, for sure.
But when it comes to your comfort, cost savings, improved air quality and health benefits, there’s a lot more involved than just the building envelope.
For maximum energy efficiency, comfort and better health, you can’t just use the same old building materials and products, and then install the same old mechanical, air handling, heating and cooling systems inside a tighter house.
Our sustainable building products and materials introduce far fewer allergens, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and other toxins into your home in the first place. Then our advanced design techniques and the high-efficiency mechanical systems we install work together to prevent toxins from building up in your home in the future.
What’s more, the same design features and mechanical systems that remove chemical toxins from your home also eliminate environmental irritants such as moisture, dust, pollen, mold and mildew, and more.
From the outside you may not see all the benefits and leading-edge performance we design into your home. But once you experience the clean, comfortable indoor environment in every season, the pristine air quality and the health benefits it brings, that’s when you’ll actually feel the quality and value of your Midwest Sustainable Construction home.
Cost Savings and Energy Efficiency
Your Midwest Sustainable Construction home will use half as much energy or less than the average home built to conventional building code, in any climate, in all four seasons. Every time your monthly utility bill arrives and it’s just half of what you used to pay, or even less, you’ll fall in love with your Midwest Sustainable Construction home all over again.
A New Level of Comfort
Code-built homes ignore critical details necessary for effective insulation in air-sealed assemblies and systems. As a result, most homeowners don’t realize how much more comfortable their homes could be. Thanks to our high performance enclosure combined with smart, efficient zoned air conditioning and heating, you’ll always feel like you’re living in a luxury mansion no matter what size your home, no matter which room you’re in, no matter what season.
Healthier Living
Healthy indoor air quality, and the high-performance products and methods we use to achieve it, are two more hidden advantages that aren’t obvious from the outside of your home. But your family’s health and safety are our top priorities, so we design the following air quality safeguards into every home we build.
- Low-emission sealants, adhesives, paints, coatings and wood products that dramatically reduce the release of formaldehyde, VOCs, and other toxins into your home.
- Radon mitigation systems to prevent deadly soil gasses from collecting in the basement.
- State-of-the-art air handling and filtration systems that ensure mold, mildew, dust, pollen, and other allergens never cause discomfort in your living space.
- Sealed combustion gas-powered appliances to prevent harmful fumes from being released or back-drafting into your home.
Take your garage, for example. Every time you pull your car in or out, your garage fills with carbon monoxide and other deadly exhaust fumes. Every time the garage door opens, a cloud of dust, pollen, other allergens, and moisture gets sucked in. It may be the single biggest challenge to the air quality in your home. And it happens multiple times a day, day in and day out.
We can design your garage with motion-sensing fans and a specialized filtration system. These technologies automatically remove airborne toxins and allergens, and prevent them from infiltrating your living space where they can cause breathing discomfort.
We can install similar smart technologies in your shower room to automatically monitor and remove moisture, and prevent the growth of health threatening mold and mildew.
It may not show from the outside, but you’ll always breather easier inside your Midwest Sustainable Construction home.
Better Materials, Better Methods
We’ll construct your home on an advanced foundation system with moisture management technology built in. Then we’ll give it extra protection from potential weather damage by applying comprehensive drainage and flashing processes from the foundation up to the roof.
The high-performance insulation and air sealants we use are Energy Star rated for superior energy efficiency. So are the state-of-the-art windows, advanced heating, cooling, ventilation and filtration systems, and all of the electrical appliances and lighting we specify for your home.
The lumber, wood sheeting, cabinets, flooring, adhesives, coatings, and paints we use are all rated for low emissions, minimizing your family’s exposure to harmful VOCs. Exterior framing is termite resistant using a naturally mined zinc compound far less toxic than other chemicals commonly used to treat lumber. You’ll sleep better at night knowing your sustainably built home is better for your family’s health, and for the health of the environment, too.
Superior Construction
The advanced wall systems in your new home will be constructed from airtight structural insulated panels, or SIPs. SIPs are made from a core of foam insulating material sandwiched between two wood sheets of oriented strand board. SIPs are much more energy efficient and stronger than traditional stick-built construction. They also have greater dimensional stability and resist warping, resulting in straighter, tighter, and more even walls. Visit Sips.org to discover all the advantage of SIPs.
Our windows are Energy Star rated to be much more thermally efficient than required by conventional building code. But we don’t stop there. Our windows are also NFRC rated, in some cases exceeding the already high Energy Star standards. Window glass is treated to block harmful ultraviolet and infrared rays, to protect your skin, carpet and furniture as well as keeping your home cooler in summer and warmer in winter. Your can visit The National Fenestration Rating Council for more benefits of NFRC-rated windows.
For the ultimate in room-to-room comfort and energy efficiency, we design zoned heating and cooling systems that feature radiant floor heating, modulating boilers for consistent temperature and reduced fuel usage, and high-performance mini-split heat pumps for air conditioning. Read the 7 advantages and benefits of mini-splits.
Sustainable Suppliers and Vendors
Our suppliers and vendors are carefully chosen to provide the high-quality, energy efficient, environmentally responsible, and sustainably sourced products, processes and green technologies we design into every home we build. These include:
- Green Building Technologies for high-efficiency mechanical systems
- Greener World Solutions for state-of-the-art coatings and finishes
- Panasonic for energy efficient mechanical systems
- Gibson HVAC for high-efficiency heating and cooling