Top: The bellows design was key to the success of the concept. Bottom: Berry and Pierson inspect a working model in the MAGNET machine shop.
In October 2008, Pierson and Berry took a demonstration model of the Siphon Flush in a transparent glass tank to the WaterSmart Innovations Conference and Expo in Las Vegas sponsored by the EPA and the Southern Nevada Water Authority. They say other exhibitors at the expo seemed to be dumbfounded by what they saw at the Siphon Flush exhibit.
"The show was a great validation," says Pierson with satisfaction. "We had people just coming over and staring at it trying to figure out how it worked—especially the toilet flapper manufacturers!"
The product will go into production in 2009 and will be targeted especially towards communities in the arid Southwest. Berry and Pierson are both geared up for the enormous potential of the product they have created.
Impact
American Innovative Products has received advance orders from all regions of the U.S. for more than 17,000 units of the Siphon Flush device. Production began in March 2009. The first units began shipping in April 2009. Since there are an estimated 240 million toilets in the U.S., and since water conservation has become a critical issue for municipalities and water authorities in the West, Southwest and Southeast, Berry believes the potential for Siphon Flush sales is enormous.
The company estimates first year sales at $7,500,000; second year sales at $13,000,000; and third-year sales at $22,000,000. Even more important to Berry is the device’s potential to save literally billions of gallons of water from being needlessly wasted.
"MAGNET's engineers look for solutions, not road blocks. In my other businesses, I often found that everybody had a reason why you can't do something. With MAGNET's engineers, everything is open—nothing is closed."
Walter G. Berry, CEO, American Innovative Products
Local inventor's business is 'in the toilet,' by Dick Russ, WKYC-TV, April 23, 2009
Cleveland—Wally Berry is proud of the fact that his business is in the toilet. Literally. Berry is the inventor of a device he says will revolutionize the way we flush our toilets. The entrepreneur brought his idea to MAGNET two years ago, and won a Cuyahoga County New Product Development Fund loan to turn his ingenious idea into a device that goes into production this month and is projected to sell thousands of units in the next two years. Watch the embedded video above, or read the text story at the WKYC site.
