The Mahomet Public Library had a fresh air problem: there was too much. 

“They had so much fresh air coming in that their air conditioning system could not handle that load,” said Ty Newell, vice president of Newell Instruments Inc. “It was like they were trying to air condition the outside.”

When the library consulted Ty for help, he developed an indoor air quality, temperature and humidity test.

“It was a bunch of wires and circuit boards just lying on a desk,” Ty said. The wires evolved into a box called the Black Box IAQ.

The Black Box is the latest in a series of products released by Build Equinox, a business run by Newell Instruments. It was released among other products designed to improve air quality. The Black Box IAQ measures carbon dioxide and volatile organic compound levels indoors, emitted gases that can harm the environment.  

Thy, also a professor emeritus in the mechanical science and engineering department at the University, created the New Instruments Inc. in 1996. The company remained on campus for eight years until it expanded in 2004. After 27 years of teaching, Ty retired in 2007.

Now the company is headed by Ty and his son, Ben, who graduated from the University with a degree in mechanical engineering and became president in 2002 after working closely with his father.

By using the same energy-efficiency methods their company promotes, they worked together on the Equinox House, a net-zero energy home in Urbana. 

They finished the house in fall 2010. During construction, they also tried to keep energy efficiency in mind. The home’s photovoltaic system, which turns sunlight into electricity, supplied energy while they constructed the building. Ty and his wife, Deb, have lived in the house ever since.

The Equinox house’s main source of power is the sun, collected through solar panels. 

To further reduce utility bills, Ty uses a charger to collect energy at night using Power Smart Pricing, an Ameren Illinois program that charges electricity hourly when energy costs can dip below three cents per kilowatt hour. He does this as opposed to using electricity around noon, when energy costs are usually more than five cents per kilowatt hour, according to Ameren.

The Equinox House also uses a Conditioning Energy Recovery Ventilator, originally developed through Newell Instruments to consistently provide the home with fresh air, as well as moderate temperature and humidity levels.

The system checks air quality indoors and outside. When the air quality is not optimal, CERV adds fresh and filtered outdoor air to the room.

In addition to drawing water from the Mahomet Aquifer, the Equinox House also relies on rainwater collectors on the roof to accumulate water. 

“We were the first house in Illinois to get that permission to use rainwater in a house,” Ty said. “After almost three years of collecting rainwater, it’s never run dry, even with the drought last summer, and it works very well.”

Although the Equinox House’s use of rainwater is restricted to toilet use, Ty said that he hopes that rainwater usage indoors will expand to other areas of the home in future years, including showers and laundry. In the meantime, the Equinox House also uses low-flow toilets to waste less water.

“Water is dirt cheap here,” Ty said. “We have some of the best water than anywhere in the world. It’s almost criminal that it is that inexpensive. There is quite a bit of waste as far as how it is used.”

Bethany Cutts, a professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, teaches environmental justice and policy at the University. She said that collecting rainwater and using low-flush toilets are a simple start for homeowners to begin to use water more wisely.

“Currently in the United States, people are using a lot of potable water for services that don’t need potable water, like watering lawns or flushing toilets,” Cutts said.

As for the Build Equinox products already in the market this spring, Ben said he has an idea of who may be among the consumers:

“It’s probably (going to be) the baby boomer generation,” Ben said. “They are perhaps downsizing and want to build a dream home for them to retire in, which is easier to live in, that they can live in for a longer period of time.” 

One of Newell Instruments’ recent products, ZEROs (Zero Energy Optimization Software), helps potential homeowners achieve that dream home. The design software helps common consumers and architects to determine the energy impact of different design choices. 

The Newell Instruments team hopes that Build Equinox products appeal to people who want a home that is easy to live in. 

“The complexities in the design of it are going to be for people who are concerned about the environment, sustainability and want to put their money where their thought is,” Ben said.

ZEROs is available at no cost to one-time users and students, although it will offer long-term packages in the future, the Black Box IAQ retails at $149 per assessment and the CERV at $4,500 a system, plus $100 a switch to control it remotely.

Lyanne can be reached at [email protected]